how to render a 960×540 movie with Avid Meridien Uncompressed

[Jeremy Garchow]

Without knowing your project specifics, I can only make some guesses. 720×540 is NTSC format in a square pixel aspect ratio. Obviously, your client needs you to create something for a square pixel environment, but any NLE will not be able to output 960×540 file very well if at all. What you need to do (and make sure you double check all of this) is that you create your project at the 960×540 pixel size, then what you need to do as apply a stretch in the output module so it will actually ‘squish’ the footage into an anamorphic format (720×540) and render out with the Avid codec in the render settings. Make sure you unclick the “lock aspect ratio” box. Your file will now be 720×540 anamorphic and an NLE should be able to output that, provided that it’s okay with working with square pixels. This will leave any footage you are previewing on an NTSC monitor looking kinda funky (circles won’t be round), but it will look okay if you are watching the movie on a computer screen. I would double check all of this with whoever you are creating it for or the editor who is outputting the final project as I am speculating a bunch here. Write back if none of this makes sense.

Jeremy

[Steve Roberts]

You can’t. Meridien only accepts 720×486.

You’ll have to render to the Animation codec then let the Avid render, or create a 720×486 widescreen movie.

Why 960×540?

[Milton Hockman]

I read a book that said to create comps at 720×540 square pixels. and work at this comp until i am finished. Then make a final comp that is 720×486 D1 pixels. And put the 720×540 square pixel comp into the 720×486 D1 pixel comp and do a “Fit to Fill.” Then when i import the movie into Avid the movie will come in looking correctly, as oppposed to circles being stretched because of the square pixel vs. non-square pixel problem.

so, i am trying to create a square pixel widescreen project. That is why I used 960×540. I thought that was 16×9 square pixel aspect ratio. am I wrong?

Also, i am using photoshop 6 for graphics, that is why i used square pixel comps.

[Jeremy Garchow]

now I get it. While this might be true for photoshop (since photoshop works in sq pixels only) it is not true in AE. AE will do all of the aspect ratio converting for you, no need to work in sq pixels. Work in a 864×486 comp and then do the squeeze at the end to get you down to 720×486. Render your movie to the avid codec you want and you should be good to go. Send a 5 second test of a circle to the editor and see if they are happy.

Jeremy