1920×1080 footage, thin black bars at side in Encore

[Jonathan Nicol]

Updating Encore to 4.0.1 fixed it 🙂

Duh, should have thought of that to begin with.

My footage no fills the timeline, and the timeline when zoomed to 100% is 1920×1080, not 1050×576.

[Rod Oneill]

Are you sure you didn’t do anything else? I’m running Encore CS5 (v5.0) and am having the same issue when bringing my 1920×1080 Square Pixel edit in as a DVD project, it ends up with bars on the left and right as you described.

I’ve tried googling for hours with no luck – can you or anyone else explain whats happening and a possible fix?

[Nick Gay]

I’m also having the same issue in CS5 (5.0)

[Jeff Bellune]

Adobe switched from using the Production Aperture to the Clean Aperture starting in CS4. According to the BBC (and others), that was the technically accurate thing to do.

More info:
ProVideo Coalition.com: Creating Motion Graphics by Chris & Trish Meyer

The Focal Easy Guide to Adobe Encore DVD 2.0

[Anthony Dejohn]

when you export out of premiere choose mpeg2-dvd. Then click on the “video” tab and change the pixel aspect ratio to standard 4:3.. This is the fix i use.. I wish there was a way to make an enhanced widescreen dvd instead of this crappy work around.

[Jeff Bellune]

You don’t need the “crappy workaround”. Just crop 12-14 pixels off the top and bottom in the Export Settings dialog and you’ll make the black bars go away. This results in a widescreen video that completely fills the frame.

-Jeff

The Focal Easy Guide to Adobe Encore DVD 2.0

[Anthony Dejohn]

Yeah, but if you’re exporting to an MPEG2-DVD that means you’re exporting to 720×480. Just to clarify, so you propose reducing the vertical height of your inital composition/sequence in Premiere by 12-14 pixels; thus allowing a perfect fit when you render to MPEG2-DVD?

I just don’t get why Adobe can’t make this cut and dry. I mean, HD widescreen has been around a while now. I think Adobe is just trying to tell us to live with the vertical black bars. It’s hardly noticable on a widescreen tv anyways, but for a perfectionist I find it frustrating.

[Jeff Bellune]

Read my response to you again, carefully. Then, if you get it working, read my post from Mar. 29, 2011 in this thread for background.

-Jeff

The Focal Easy Guide to Adobe Encore DVD 2.0

[Anthony Dejohn]

Ok.. I get that, but most people don’t want to upscale. The default MPEG2-DVD export is 720×480 (we all know this!) and what you’re saying is that if you change the export resolution to 720×468 that will solve the pillarbox issue created by downscaling an HD source for SD dvd distribution. However, Encore is merely scaling your footage up which reduces the quality of your image. I’m not willing to do that and I don’t consider it a viable option. This makes me wonder though, if instead of cropping you add 12px to the height if it would fill the screen; this would eliminate the upscale to the constrained SD/480px.

[Anthony Dejohn]

Scrap that idea because in Premiere CS5 if you use the MPEG2-DVD export option you cannot alter the export resolution; you must use 720×480 and this cannot be changed!

I think what you’re proposing is that you export a 1920×1080 version from Premiere and import that into Encore. Once in encore you can adjust the height by 10-12px as you proposed and transcode. But, any solution to this issue that requires upscaling pixels I’d recommend staying away from.