Exporting video for broadcast using Premiere Pro

[Juan Manuel]

I’d say you need to specify 720×480 with NTSC DV pixel aspect ratio (which is about 0.909)

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Alberto,

You need to find out exactly what the broadcaster is looking for. Your source material is obviously 16:9 widescreen, but you are delivering in SD. That means your video will either be letterboxed (black bars top and bottom), or may need to be cropped to fill the 4:3 screen. Which do they want? Or might they want widescreen SD? In which case it is still 720×480, but using a 1.2 pixel aspect ratio.

Also, rather than manually scaling the video down, you can enable “Scale to Frame Size” in Preferences, or right-click a clip on the timeline and “Scale to Frame”, rather than using Adobe Motion settings.

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Shane Ross]

From the sounds of it, they don’t want it letterboxed. They want it full frame. So that means that you’ll need to pan and scan your 16:9 footage so that it shows what you want to show.

BUT…ask them. Ask they if they are requesting that it be full frame 4:3. Most broadcasters, when they ask for 720×480…Standard Def…do NOT want it letterboxed.

I deliver HD shows, but am asked to make all graphics 4:3 title safe, and make sure all the interviews are also 4:3 protected, because when they broadcast the show in SD…it will be full frame, not letterboxed.

Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Alberto Hernandez]

Thank you for the answers. The problem is the communication with the tv company and the way we export the video. They don’t want the size 720×480 (654×480), but the the size 654×480 is the real content right? without the black bars, if they want the full size of 720×480, we need to adjust the widescreen to 4:3 right?
We made a test exporting in final cut using the quicktime conversion, in the settings of aspect we leve letterbox and the size 720×480. When we play the video in quicktime in movie inspector the size is 720×480 without the 654×480. We supposed is the way that the want the video, but how con we do that in premier? Bye the way is we are confused about the way that premiere an final export’s. When we drag the final cut render (720×480) SD into a new sequence in premiere the field dominance is progressive not interlaced as the render. Final Cut and Premiere make the exports with different algorithm or some kind of?

PS. Sorry for my bad english

[Chris Tompkins]

I wouldn’t drop the 1080 sequence into a SD sequence.
Export from the 1080 sequence straight to render out the file you need at the specs they want. Send to AME to create the final file.

Chris