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Content for Local Movie Theater – Best way burn animations to DVD?
Greetings,
I recently got a gig creating advertising animations for the local theater. Finishing up my first project for them and would like input on burning the content to a DVD.
Specs I received from the theater:
Resolution: 1018px by 558px (3.393 x 86 @ 300dpi)
Video: Uncompressed QT/AVI or high quality h264 QTThe projector broadcasts a 1024×768 (VGA) image. This image is pretty square compared to the wide theater screens. The top and bottom of the projector signal is cropped off to accommodate the rectangular screens. If you make the ads 1018px x 558px they will be at 100% sharpness. The ads can be made a higher resolution as long as they are the same aspect ration as the screens (1.8244) No matter what resolution the ads are created in the final will be 1018px by 558px.
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So I’m making content to play in the theater on the screens and also for flat screen tvs in the lobby.
I make my compositions 720×1280 giving me an aspect ratio of 1.78, close enough to 1.82, to accommodate playing on the tv’s in the lobby and the big screen in the theater. Is this correct?
I’m trying to burn one of my projects now. 720×1280, square pixels. Rendered out an uncompressed QT, ran it through AME to make it H264. I burned the file with iDVD. NTSC, professional quality, 16:9 ratio. After it burned I put the DVD in the computer and there is a huge lose in quality. Very pixelated.
I tried setting it up in Nero on my PC and was going through the settings. It gives a video format: MPEG-2… but I already have h264 mov encoded on it so does this encode it again? Aspect ratio is 16:9, progressive sample format. With a quality setting to HIGH the resolution is only 720×480. Why can’t I set it to 720×1280?
So I think it’s evident I still have quite a few things to learn here. I guess the questions I need answered are:
– What size should I make my AE comp when starting out?
720×1280 sq. px/558×1018 sq. px?– Am I doing it correctly rendering out an uncompressed QT then encoding in AME?
– Use iDVD or some other burning software? What should my burn settings be?
I would greatly appreciate any comments to help me out!
Thanks everyone.
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6 Replies
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They are not asking for a playable DVD, they are asking for a movie file. Give them what they are asking for and don’t put it on a DVD, A DVD will always be 720×480.
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Thanks for the quick response Michael.
I think you are correct that I need to just give them the file that they want played on the big screen. But for the advertising in the lobby on the flatscreen TV I am told to burn the file on a DVD that will continually loop.
So back to my original post, why when I burn the file 720×1280, sq. px to a DVD with iDVD does the footage become pixelated?
Thanks,
Nathan -
DVD is always 720×480, since it is going to a flatsscreen it needs to be widescreen, but still 720×480. You want to down convert your file to 720×480 with a anamorphic pixel aspect ratio (1.2). Author the dvd with 16:9 Letterbox. If you are creating the animation you also want to keep it progressive all the way through the workflow.
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Would you mind walking me through the process Michael? So I import my file into AE and make it it’s own comp. 720×1280 and it has it’s original pixel aspect ratio of sq. pixels.
I create a new comp at 720×480 with a pixel aspect ratio of D1/DV NTSC Widescreen (1.21). Add the 720×1280 comp in. With the pixel aspect ratio button unchecked the footage looks squished but with it checked, meaning how it will actually be display, the footage has a bunch of jaggy edges… reading up on this, that is just how AE deals with the widescreen but when I render the file it those jaggys won’t be there. Is that correct?
What do you mean by “author the dvd with 16:9 letterbox”? Do I need the blackbars? I want the footage flush to the edges so if I scale up the 720×1280 comp it just cuts off a little from the top and bottom. Is that fine?
What do you mean by “if I’m creating the animation I want to keep it progressive all the way through”? How is that accomplished and what does that mean?
The 720×1280 file has a H264 compression on it. If i put that in the 720×480 comp, can I render the file out as a quicktime with no compression which would keep the original H264 compression on it? OR do I have to go back to the original file, set all this up (placing the 720×1280 in the 720×480, rendering out an uncompressed QT, and then bring that file into AME to put the H264 codec on it?)
Thanks,
Nathan -
I don’t use AE so no help there.
We have posted HD to SD workflow a thousand times here so if you do a little research you will find it.
When downconverting you want to choose 720×480 Widescreen or anamorphic, it normally confirms that it is a 1.2 aspect ratio, that is what you want.
You never choose interlace any where in your composition, export, encoding.
H264 should never be choosen for any step in the creation of the DVD.
You should be working is AE at the highest needed resolution. You export that uncompressed. Take that file and downconvert it to m2v for DVD and H264 for theater.
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Thanks very much Michael. I think I finally understand everything now. I was getting the DVD and theater content mixed up.
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