Demo reel on DVD: What size (in pixels) should it be in AE?

[Darby Edelen]

[Alexei] “What size should it be created / rendered in to be seen well on a TV screen? What is the best practice?”

That depends on the devices that will be used to view it. If you’re making an SD DVD in the US it should be NTSC DV or NTSC DV Widescreen. Elsewhere it should probably be PAL DV, although I believe Japan and some other Asian countries use a variation of NTSC.

Make sure you pay attention to your title and action safe zones!

Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA

[Ben Hawkins]

Well the standard (4:3) would be 720×480 for non square pixels so it will hold its PAR (pixel aspect ratio) and will stretch to the size for the screen. otherwise there is 720x 540 for square pixels, While this will hold it shape and will not look as stretched, this is better for computer screens because some TV sets will still stretch it out. Also are you going to create this demo reel in wide screen (16:9) or standard (4:3)? I hope that helps a little, this question could go in much further in depth and also would also need some more info from you, like what exactly are you putting in your demo reel, live video, Photoshop docs, ect.
But here is an example, I did my first demo reel in standard 720×480 (4:3) But I found most jobs did not watch it on a TV screen, (something to think about.)
Here is a link to what it looks like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tv1cq1ltS6I, (remember this you tube and it was compressed a ton, which I could of fixed by compressing it in flash myself. but that another story.)

Well, good luck

Demo slaughter

Ben

Oh and if you want to learn more about PAR or square vrs non-square pixels there are a ton of articles out there or even on this site. Here

[Alexei]

Thank you Darby,
This is for Canada/US, so it would be NTSC then, I suppose.
As for ZONES, is there an option to make it zone-free ?
Alexei

[Alexei]

Thanks Ben for very detailed information!
I don’t know what they going to use to play back that DVD actually.
You were saying it’s rare when they look at it on a TV,right?
So maybe square pixels is way to go?
As for the content (Video or Photoshop), I want to re-fine and re-render my existing demo reel http://www.solar5ive.com and make it send-able (if I can say so), or manually bring it to studios.

Alexei

[Ben Hawkins]

Hey,

Yes, for this project I would recommend you revise it in square pixels and keep it full screen (4:3). Also remember to keep an eye on your action safe and title safe bars. Also make sure you watch this demo on more than one computer and more than one TV. Make sure it looks good on diffrnet mediums.

About the companies watching your video on a computer. In my experience they would 90% of the time watch it over the internet or just plug the DVD into the computer right away, some times before they even looked at my resume.

Also a quick little tip about when you make your DVD. I recommend that you create an artsy menu and the only option (button) on that menu is Play and that

[Andrew Yoole]

With all due respect to all concerned, the information provided here by pizza role slaughter is not entirely correct, and you are far better advised to follow the prior advice by Dave LaRonde and others.

DVDs have very strict resolution requirements that cannot be changed. Square pixels are not an option on a DVD – the MPEG2 stream MUST be encoded at the standards mentioned above (in your case the NTSC info): 16×9 NTSC DV (either 4:3 or 16:9) 720×480.

You can work with square pixels within AE or other applications if you really want to, but ultimately that material MUST be converted to DV resolution in order to be MPEG2 encoded, whether by AE, your NLE, or even your encoding application. By and large, the standard presets in most NLEs do not use square pixel resolutions anyway.

But it is generally far more efficient and logical to work directly at the resolution you are outputting to, particularly if you are merely compiling previously rendered material into a showreel. Why render more pixels than you need to? And why run the risk that the conversion to the correct resolution will reduce the quality of your final material?