AE CS4 Workflow/PAR Questions…

[Kevin Camp]

[Brian Cody] “1. If my final output is for a NTSC 16:9 (widescreen) what do I want my comp settings to be? (NTSC DV WIDE or NTSC D1 WIDE) What is the difference between DV and D1?”

d1 is 720×486, dv is 720×480… which one you want to work with in ae comes down to what you need in the end. it sounds like you want a dvd, so the dv frame size is the one to choose (720×480).

[Brian Cody] “2. I have a designer working in InDesign so all the images created will be square pixels. What pixel size should I tell him use so when I import the images they will work with a NTSC DV/D1 WIDE Comp? (872×486?)”

yes, 872×486 would be a good choice if you will not need to enlarge any of the elements. if you want/need more freedom to compose within ae, then you may want elements larger to you won’t be enlarging pieces… say you have a photo and you want to zoom in on part of it. you don’t want to scale it up beyond 100%, so you’d like the photo to be large enough so taht at the end of the zoom the scale is 100% or less. so you’d need the original photo to be larger than the frame size in ae….

[Brian Cody] “3. What is the best workflow for taking your comp in AE and getting it on a DVD for playing on a TV? (Grab the comp in Encore and render out? or render in AE to a loss less format then use Encore or something else?)”

i haven’t used encore, so i can’t give the best workflow advice. but i would normally render out a lossless mov from ae, then take that ether to the dvd software for mpeg-2 conversion or to another compression utility for mpeg2, then burn the dvd. not that you mentioned this, but i would not render mpeg-2 out of ae….

[Brian Cody] “4. When do you use the “Interpret Footage” in AE?
Example: I grab an FLV off the web that is square pixel but I am using it in a comp that is NTSC DV 4:3. Can I just drag it onto the comp or do I use the “Interpret Footage” option?)”

you’ll usually only use the interpret footage options when you know the footage is not being interpreted correctly by ae. like you know the footage was interlaced, but ae is treating it as progressive. or you know the par is 1.2, but ae treats it as square pixel. basically you’ll override ae’s interpretation because you know that ae is incorrect. most of the time ae will correctly handle images and footage.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Brian Cody]

Thanks all for your help. #1, #3 and #4 are cleared up. I am still a little confused on #2 (what Square Pixel footage/images to start with). I burnt a 16:9 NTSC DV DVD(in iDVD) with a 864×480(originally square pixel) .mov video and some 864×486 images in as a sideshow.

The images looked great but have black bars on the top and bottom. Is that correct?

The video fit the whole screen but the circles look too short and fat like the video needs to be taller. How do I fix that?

Once again thank for helping out a newbie.

P.S. Possible Stupid question. Can a 1280×720 movie be burned to a regular(NOT HD or Blue Ray) DVD?

[Chad Perkins]

Kevin’s responses were amazing (and very generous); I just wanted to chime in on the AE/Encore workflow. If you’re using CS3 or CS4, you can use Dynamic Link to connect AE to Encore without rendering, and this usually works (fairly) well.

I don’t have the app open, but I believe that you can go to the File menu in Encore and choose Adobe Dynamic Link>Import After Effects Composition, and then navigate to the AE project on the left hand side of the dialog box, and then choose from the comps in the project on the right hand side.

This way you don’t have to take extra time to render from After Effects before getting started with the DVD authoring process. Also, you don’t need to introduce any unnecessary compression into your workflow. (by the way, if you’re using Premiere Pro CS4, you can also import PrPro sequences via Dynamic Link, and send clips from Premiere Pro to AE and back again via Dynamic Link, so you really don’t have to use compression much at all in the entire workflow).

Dynamically linked AE comps can be used in Encore as motion menu backgrounds, timelines, etc. Hopefully this helps!

[Kevin Camp]

864×480 (or 864×486) was the ‘old’ square pixel standard for 16×9 sd, and would have worked fairly well for earlier versions of ae.

adobe updated it’s sd par values to be more correct in cs4. so now, if you work with 872×486 images in ae, they should scale correctly and fill in a widescreen d1 or dv standard comp frame.

sd footage will almost always have a nonsquare par. as long as ae correctly identifies the footage’s par, then you can put it in any comp and ae will handle the par correction. in the case of .9 par footage in a widescreen comp (either 1.2 or square par) you will get ‘columns’ on either side of the frame. in the case of 1.2 par footage in a 4:3 comp it will center cut the footage (you can choose layer>transform>fit comp width to letter box).

there shouldn’t be any distortion of the image or footage as long as the par’s are correctly interpreted.

[Brian Cody] “P.S. Possible Stupid question. Can a 1280×720 movie be burned to a regular(NOT HD or Blue Ray) DVD?”

nope, but you can burn a 16:9 dvd that will play correctly in most dvd players made this decade. the footage will need to be 720×480, 1.2 par and there should be a way to flag the file/disc as 16:9 in encore, so when it is played in dvd player the player handles it correctly.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW