exporting 16:9 still frames from Media100

[Curious Turtle]

Hi Madeleine,

It’s all about Pixel Aspect Ratio (PAR). I’m assuming you’re working in SD, so all frames, whether 4:3 or 16:9, are made of the same number of pixels. These are non-square pixels, as opposed to the square pixels the computer uses.

So, in Photoshop make sure you have your PAR set correctly. or resize your image to the equivalent square pixel size. I only have the PAL sizes on the tip of my tongue but it’s:

Aspect Square pixel equivalent

4:3 768×576
16:9 1024×576

I think Photoshop has presets for these sizes.

HTH,
Ben

Curious Turtle Professional Video
Training | Editing |Support

http://www.curiousturtle.com

[Michael Slowe]

Ben, I always export stills quite happily direct from the Media 100 Edit Suite without altering anything other than choosing the type of file (BMP, TIFF etc). They go onto a disc and print perfectly but should I be messing around with pixels if I want to do any changes in Photoshop?

[Curious Turtle]

If the program you use understands Pixel Aspect Ratios and you don’t see a problem, then no messing around is needed. If your 16:9 (SD) images look “squished”, then it’s treating your non-square pixels as regular square pixels, and you have to compensate for this (by scaling horizontally).

Uncompressed HD works with square pixels natively, so there’s no need to compensate for the PAR. Note: many compressed “HD” formats, for example HDV and DVCProHD, also use non-square pixels.

Hope this makes sense.

Ben

Curious Turtle Professional Video
Training | Editing |Support

http://www.curiousturtle.com