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broadcast type size’s
hello, for years I have been making a solid 14 or 16 pixels high and using this as my guide for legal type.
but today I read 16 line’s (which is the recomended BACC size here in the uk) is not that same as 16 pixels?and today this seemed more obvuois as I had to do a legal super which was so long if it was based on a 16 pixel solid it would of taken up half the screen.
to cut a long story short whats the correct way to get legal type out of AE.
cheers
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5 Replies
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a pixel is a scan line in the comp window. The problem with type is that it isn’t always as tall as it says it is. What I mean that type would be created by the type designer in a box that defines the height and width of a character. There’s nothing in the type design rules that says that your type must fill the box on all sides. This means you can have 28 point type that is 28 points wide but only 10 points high. Most fonts are smaller than the box so if you are looking for 16 point or 16 pixel in AE terms high your actual characters may be only 10 or 12 pixels or scan lines high.
what i’ve seen done, and i learned this from a class in AE, is to create a solid with the height of the required type and then adjust the point size of the type until it fits. If i’m trying to be really precise i’ll zoom the comp window into 800% and use font size to get close and then scale to make the majority of the type fit and line up with the scan lines precisely.
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forgot to mention that if you are outputting to interlaced video your small type must be an even number of pixels high or it will flicker terribly.
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I always work to 17 lines high (I thought 17 was the legal height the BACC stipulated?)
On a Quantel Paintbox, which is what I worked on before PS & AE, I zoomed up to pixel/line level on a lower case ‘x’ at the intended size and counted how many lines high. It is recommended to use an x because how the anti-aliasing effects diff characters and x is the constant.
AFAIK counting pixels in a PS document or AE comp (as long as the file is broadcast dimensions) is the same as counting TV lines on a broadcast monitor? …Please tell me if I’m wrong!
I’ve not had anything kicked out for the last 7 years, so the BACC are pretty slack if I am wrong!
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Hi thank you both for your replies.
the problem I’m having is that if you’re working 16.9 with 14.9 saftey and you make a solid that is 16 pixels high then the text is massive and when you scale it up and count the scan lines it isn’t the same. the other day with the legals I posted about my solid was 14 pixels(this is a technique I use also) but when I scaled it up and counted the lines it was 16?also when you watch the tv the legals look like there about 12 pixels?
is there a seperate rule for legals?
16 pixel solid is fine for normal supers and subs it’s just problematic with supers.
anyway thanks for your help fellas
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I’ve just realised I think all my legals since I started using Photoshop are bigger than they need to be!…
..If PAL is 625 lines, then you divide that between 576 pixels and multiply by 16 – it comes out as 17.36 lines. I believe 17 lines is the legal size, so I’ve been 1.5 lines over with all mine. Oops. Better safer than sorry..
Or have I got that wrong? I’d just taken it for granted upto now that zooming into pixel level in PS/AE and counting was the same as zooming right in on a Paintbox. Now you’ve got me confused!
Anyone know the definitive answer to this?
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Jim,
Not sure about the ‘solid’ rule, but honestly if you just type a lower case ‘X’ at the end of the text line in question and count only the solid pixels (ie: not grey anti-aliasing. It’s best to count on a contrasting background aswell) then you should be fine. If you’re using all capitals however, I *think* you can get away with using the x height of your capital X…I’ve never done an all caps legal, so not sure on that.
AFAIK you only need to wory about sizes at all if your text is a legal requirement. We paste copyright lines from Dreamworks or wherever onto some of our toy commercials and they can be as small as you like.
*Production Studio Premium / *Combustion 3
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Win XP Pro SP2 / Intel P4 3GHz / 2GB RAM / GeForce FX5200 / DeckLink Pro / Sony BVM-20G1E / DVS SDI Clipstation / 110GB boot/80GB media/600GB RAID-0
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