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Clarify “Action Safe” and Comp Size…
I am putting a video clip into a comp. I learned that out of the Action Safe lines, it will not be show on a TV. So are you supposed to scale down the video to the action safe lines?
If so, when you add a solid, why do you choose “make comp size”, and why is there a comp size at all if it won’t be shown?
If the action safe lives are for TV, and beyond those lines WILL be shown on a computer screen, up until the comp size, what do you do if you will want the clip to be shown both on computer AND a TV screen? If you scale things down to the action safe lines, there will be black bars when viewed on the computer. If you scale to comp size, some of the picture will be cut out when viewed on TV screen. What do you do?
Thank you
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5 Replies
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Hey Zvi_Twersky,
[Zvi_Twersky] “So are you supposed to scale down the video to the action safe lines?”
Depends of the raw footage. But as for text, it matters a lot.
[Zvi_Twersky] “If so, when you add a solid, why do you choose “make comp size”, and why is there a comp size at all if it won’t be shown?”
Because you can decide wheter you want to play it on your computer or on your TV?
If I were you’ I wouldn’t touch to the video footage, I’d just adjust my text properly and make everything look good and see what it looks like on TV.
[Zvi_Twersky] “what do you do if you will want the clip to be shown both on computer AND a TV screen”
Save your project and make changes if needed.
I’m not a professional – although I use AE everyday since 4 years – but I hope someone will come with a better solution.
Good luck.
Justin Productions
Tangerin01@hotmail.com
Adobe After Effects 6.5 Professional -
Action and title safe, while still valid, are less important with plasmas, apparently. It depends on the TV.
If you scale down your comp to safe area, you know that someone will show it on a TV with a different safe area, and you’ll see black lines. So don’t do it. 🙂
Safe area isn’t hard and fast, but it’s still a good guide.
But yes, your comp design cannot be 100% precise when working fot TV playback. That’s just the way it is.
I suppose that if “comp size” were the area actually seen inside the safe area, then when rendering, you’d have to add black padding to bring it out to the standard D1 size for technical reasons. Fair enough, but it actually works the other way: make a comp that is the standard D1 size, then account for the cutoff of most sets. C’est la vie.
Here’s what I do:
– design within safe area, but make sure there’s some kind of content outside the safe area as well.
– if it will be shown on computers and TV, I design in a comp that has the main stuff within safe (as above), but then drop that into two comps for rendering: one for TV and one that has been scaled up slightly to bring the main stuff closer to the edges. Your mileage may vary.
– make a black “safe mask” when showing test vids to clients (sometimes), so they don’t get confused by the cutoff when they see it on TV.We’re stuck with it.
I suggest you get the books by Chris and Trish Meyer for more info on motion graphics. -
Generally you shoot all footage keeping action safe in mind. It is not an afterthought, If you compose all your material and shoot all your footage ignorant of action safe (everyone does it on their first real job) The only options will be obvious hacks like black bars.
Good composition keeps all the important parts of the image within action safe but doesn’t have alot of unused screen around it.
Do not scale your work down to fit. Reshoot any video. If you need a visual guide while shooting you can mark action safe with a sharpie on some clear acetate and tape that to your LCD.
After Effects and Premiere have action safe markers you can toggle on/off.
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The action safe (10% in from the edges) is a guide and not a solid division between visible and hidden. It should be assumed that anything outside of the action safe will not be visible, but that doesn’t mean it should be empty space! If someone has a TV that can view more of the area outside of the action safe than another TV (it really does vary from TV to TV) or they can ‘overscan’ then they will see outside of the action safe. Anything outside the action safe is assumed to be hidden, but may not be… consider it a bonus for some people.
The title safe (10% in from the action safe) is also only a guide, but one that you should follow religiously when placing text on screen. Everything within the title safe will always be visible on a TV, and should be relatively free of distortion if the user has an older pre-flat screen TV.
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Also, in the UK at least, when making commercials we have to work within a 14:9 title safe guide *ON TOP* of the usual action safe. This is because in the UK we broadcast anamorphic 16:9, but have to still allow for people on an old 4:3 CRT television where it gets scaled up and cropped to 14:9. If legal titles go outside this safe the TVC can get chucked out, likewise with minimum legal type height.
Up until recently we had to work within a 4:3 title safe on a 16:9 frame, which is ridiculous!! But some cable boxes would allow viewers to blow their picture right up to totally fill the 4:3 screen….basically until EVERYONE of your viewers is on the same plasma/LCD widescreen TV (ie: probably never) you have to work it for all eventualities. Like Steve said (I think?) even then the crop on each plasma/LCD will be slightly different, so no one will see exactly the same picture.
If you are mainly making programmes for projections at presentations/exhibitions then of course these safes don’t really apply, likewise with the web.
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