-
Here’s a weird question …maybe not :)
Hey fellow cows,
I have a question that some might look at and gasp and I don’t know what the rest will think.
Well, here goes nuttin’
I want to jazz up our news set for upcoming elections in May. We do not have any HD equipment but I’d like to rent either a plasma screen or hd consumer tv to put on the set and have an animated backgroud running on it at all times during the election coverage.
I want to know if it’s possible and what is the procedure to do that without any hd or 16X9 equipment.
Here’s what’s been rolling around in my head;
1. My father has an hd tv but he does not get any hd signal on it yet, just digital cable. Whatever show is on, the set stretches to “look” like 16X9 but the image obviously looks distorted.
With this in mind, I assume that if I create this animation at a certain aspect, once I play it through the set, it should not look distorted.
Right? If i’m on the right track, what aspect should I make it? I guess it would have to be taller than it is wide to make up for the stretch.
I give this extra info if it’s needed – I am going to use a Media 844x nle to create the animation and run it on dvcpro.
Thanks in advance,
Sam -
3 Replies
-
HD televisions playing standard def stuff usually offer a few options…one is like you say, a basic stretch of the picture (another leaves the middle of the picture normal anbd really stretches the edges (this keeps faces that are in the middle of the picture looking noremal). So, yes, your theory is correct, if you create an animnation that is horizontally compacted, then your animation will play back correctly. To get it just right, ideally you would create it in HD (maybe on final cut pro for example) and then squish it to fit in standard def, and so forth. However, keep in mind that it is a background image and it might not really need to be “just right.” I would buy the tv first and play around with a few things and just see how they look.
-
I’ve done it by creating it in 16×9, squishing it to 4×3, and the monitor will automatically stretch it back to 16×9. Quality isn’t too much of a factor because it’s going to be in the background.
-
you should be able to create your animation as 720×480 (or 486 depending on your gear) and use a 1.25 pixel aspect ratio (most animation systems (lightwave, maya, etc) allow this as do most effects systems (AE, Borris, etc) As long as you create your images as DV wide screen you should be fine. No need IMHO to go for an HD image because you will never see the difference through an NTSC camera.
For an even cooler look, rotate the monitor 90 degrees and create the animation with that in mind.
MB
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up