format conversion

Adobe After Effects

format conversion

Posted by John Obrien on April 16, 2009 at 5:29 pm

I shot with Canon HV20 (1440 x1080) (1.33)

I then created a comp automatically with this footage.

Question: when I drop this into a 640×480 comp and force to fit to screen I am left with something that is unlike the eventual 720×480 format I am looking for. This is due perhaps to the pixel shape discrepancies? What formula or steps should I follow here?

Thanks,
John

Kevin Camp replied 17 years, 2 months ago 3 Members · 5 Replies
5 Replies

Kevin Camp
April 16, 2009 at 6:10 pm

if you want to go with 720×480 eventually, why go with 640×480 in between? it’s 10% lower resolution, so you may be getting some loss with this method.

also, is the eventual 720×480 format a widescreen (16×9, par: 1.2) 720×480 or a standard (4×3, par: .9) 720×480?

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW
John Obrien
April 16, 2009 at 6:19 pm

thanks. I’m going to an SD DVD via DVD Studio Pro and was under the impression that I should
present a 640×480 file for its conversion to 720×480. The piece is being presented in full screen (4:3 .9)

J.
Kevin Camp
April 16, 2009 at 6:47 pm

i would go with a 720×480, .9 pixel comp (assuming the frame rate is 29.97, just use the ‘ntsc dv’ comp preset).

then when you conform the frame size, choose layer>transform>fit to comp height. this will scale the footage properly to ‘center cut’ the hd footage size (you did say full screen 4×3, right?)… if you wanted to letterbox the 16×9 footage you could choose layer>transform>fit to comp width…

in either case, ae should handle the par correction going from a 1.33 par (footage) to a .9 par (comp) without any trouble.

then render out with as little compression as possible (lossless animation would be great, but a quicktime photo-jpeg may suffice if you can’t afford the disk space). then let dvd studio pro handle the compression to mpeg-2.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW
Nate Hanson
April 16, 2009 at 10:08 pm

[Kevin Camp] “render out with as little compression as possible (lossless animation would be great, but a quicktime photo-jpeg may suffice if you can’t afford the disk space). then let dvd studio pro handle the compression to mpeg-2.”

Sorry to jump into the conversation, but I have a question about that: is it better to drop the Quicktime straight into DVDSP, or should it be sent to Compressor to be converted to mpeg-2?

Nate Hanson
Pilothouse Films
Kevin Camp
April 17, 2009 at 5:15 pm

yep, you guys are correct. you’d be better off with compressor, and any body who has dvd studio pro would have compressor too…. so that would be the way to go… sorry ’bout that.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

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