compression and aspect ratio

[Simon Bonner]

Hi Chris,

You don’t want to use square pixels, stretch or anything like that. NTSC DVDs can only use 720 x 480 pixels, and if you use square pixels you will have more pixels than the dvd can cope with.

The way you get the proper 16:9 is by different sized pixels to standard 4:3, but the NUMBER of pixels is the same.

If you set your comp to NTSC widescreen NON-square pixels, you will have done everything you need to in order to make sure it will work as a 16:9 video on a DVD.

NOTE: It might initially look squashed in AE because the programme by default shows everything on screen in square pixels, but if you toggle the button in the bottom right of the composition panel (hover over them one by one and you’ll find the one you’re looking for), you can correct the view to 16:9 so you can see what you’ll expect to see on the DVD.

ALSO NOTE: Rendering this format as QT and opening it in QT player will give a video that still looks squashed because the player doesn’t automatically recognise that the pixels should be displayed in non-square format. Don’t worry – your DVD software will get it right.

Simon Bonner

youtube.com/simonsaysfx

[Chris Mclaughlin]

Hi Simon thank you much for the help…yes the source footage always looks squashed when i import in the comp screen but what I usually do is enlarge the source video to the edges of the safe areas to bring it to full screen of my monitor when I am previewing because when I dont i get the pillar bars on the sides…by making the source video bigger is that making the pixels bigger and worse?? because when I render out the final size of the video is always 720×480.. should i leave the source video squashed like that…also if i do export in quicktime as 720×480 and then import into FCE do you know if I have to make that footage anamorphic in FCE to get 16:9 result ??????
thanks
chris

[Andy George]

Hi Chris,

I think your getting true 16:9 and anamorphic
confused. NTSC is not capable of displaying
a 16:9 image in the same manner as HD.

NTSC video only comes in 1 aspect ratio. 4:3.

Because of these restrictions think of this as a workaround to
put a 16:9 image into a 4:3 frame. That workaround is called Anamorphic widescreen.

The 16:9 data is horizontally squeezed
to fit into the 4:3 frame (squashed like you say) and we need to tell AE
to un-squeeze it so that we can view it as it was intended.

The proper way to do this is as Simon stated.

NOTE: It might initially look squashed in AE because the programme by default shows everything on screen in square pixels, but if you toggle the button in the bottom right of the composition panel (hover over them one by one and you’ll find the one you’re looking for), you can correct the view to 16:9 so you can see what you’ll expect to see on the DVD.

..by making the source video bigger is that making the pixels bigger and worse??
Yes.
You do not want to scale your video in any way if you want to maintain the highest quality.

.also if i do export in quicktime as 720×480 and then import into FCE do you know if I have to make that footage anamorphic in FCE to get 16:9 result ??????

Again its just a matter if setting your FC timeline up for it to
interpret your anamorphic footage correctly. Dragging and dropping a clip
into a new timeline should prompt you to set the timeline with the same properties
as your rendered clip.

BTW you can set up your compositions in AE in a similar fashion by dragging and dropping
your video footage into the “make new comp” button at the bottom of your project panel.
AE sets up a new composition based on the length and format of your footage.

This process of stuffing 16:9 into 4:3 continues to happen every step along the way.
When you create your DVD the DVD software will put a flag on your 4:3 content telling the
DVD player to correctly interpret the footage again.

-Andy

[Chris Mclaughlin]

Hi Andy
First I would just like to thank you for your help and communication…I have been stumped on this for a while and everyone on the forum is super helpful and nice.
I am using AE 5.5 and dont see the button to switch over to see what I would see on DVD in the bottom of the comp window…Is that only in newer versions??
So if I use the 720×480 widescreen comp setting just leave the footage squashed looking??..only asking because of the above reason with AE 5.5..if I dont have a way to monitor what it will look like on DVD… so as long the comp says widescreen 720×480 and I use the amamorphic pixel aspect ratio setting then all my stuff should be widescreen anamorphic?? I have experimented alot and last night I rendered out something from AE at 720×480 and then imported into sorenson squeeze and the video showed up 640×320 and in 4:3 even with selecting the 16:9 hdtv DVD smart template. if it was rendered from a 720×480 widescreen comp seting then why does it show up 4:3 in squeeze…when i change a setting in squeeze to raw(square pixels) it only then goes into 720×480…is it just rule of thumb that as long as i create in the right comp setting then the DVD software settings will just take over and make the final output widescreen or anamorphic? just very confusing and frustrating because I have been looking at it as taking something that is 4:3 and trying to put it in 16:9.
thanks again
chris

[Simon Bonner]

Hi again, Chris

As you say, if you have 720×480 and the comp settings say 16:9 anamorphic, then whatever it looks like in AE you will be rendering out the exact format you need to get a 16:9 DVD. I don’t know why Squeeze isn’t recognising the format of your video, but I have had problems like this before myself (Premiere thinking my videos are 4:3 when I know they are 16:9 – I just have to set them up manually). Perhaps it is something to do with using an older version of AE? Not sure. I have only been using it since AE7.

Anyway, you could always leave squeeze out of the equation and let your DVD authoring software compress for you. When I use Encore it always gets the interpretation right.

Simon Bonner

youtube.com/simonsaysfx