Make 720×576 look correct

[Michael Gissing]

Is the picture frame 4:3 or 16:9? If it is 4:3 then you need to export as letterbox. If 16:9 then the frame needs to be set to unsqueeze. 720 x 576 is standard def PAL and 4:3 so the anamorphic squeeze is the best way to pack a 16:9 picture into a 4:3 carrier.

[Kevin Camin]

You’ll just need to do some math to figure out the new dimensions:

Your video is 1920×1080. It has an aspect ratio of 16:9. Meaning for every 16 units horizontally it is 9 units vertically. If a video was 500×500, it would have an aspect ratio of 1:1. If a video was 1000×500 it would have an aspect ratio of 2:1.

Your picture frame is 720×576 and has an aspect ratio of 5:4. You have an aspect ratio mismatch. Your picture frame is very close to a square shape, whereas your video is widescreen (almost twice as long as tall)

You can figure out the height that you need to maintain the 16:9 aspect ratio by:

1080 / 1920 x 576(picture frames height) = new height

It comes out to 405. So I would create a FCP project at 720×576 and drop your 1920×1080 footage into that. I haven’t used FCPX, but if it’s anything like FCP7, it should properly scale it to fit this frame with a letterbox on the top and bottom. You might need to put a black solid behind the video. You could try to just export a 720×405 from your 1920×1080 master, but I’m not sure if your picture frame will letterbox it or stretch the video to fit.

Good luck

References: https://andrew.hedges.name/experiments/aspect_ratio

Best regards,

Kevin Camin

[Rafael Amador]

Nothing wrong. QT Player do not understand of Pixels aspects.
If y
In the Movie Properties > Video Track > Visual settings, set 1024×576.
rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Kevin Brower]

The picture frame is 4:3

[Kevin Brower]

Thanks guys It worked by creating a 576 timeline and dropping in 1080 footage. It automatically put on the letterbox bars. I then put it in streamclip and converted it to Mpeg 4 so I could play on my picture frame.

[Kevin Camin]

It’s not 4:3. It might look like it but if you take…

720 x 576 and divide each number by 144 you get 5 x 4 or 5:4.

1920 x 1080 and divide each number by 120 you get 16:9.

All I’m doing is treating the numbers like a fraction or ratio and reducing the numbers down to their lowest whole number terms. It’s nothing complicated. It’s like changing 15:10 to 3:2 (divide each side by 5). 3 or 2 can’t be reduced unless you want to work with decimals, but it get’s harder to visualize (for instance 4:3 aspect ratio could be expressed as 1:0.75, but it’s not as clean of communication.)

If you have Photoshop or After Effects, you can open a new project or comp, respectively, and slide the numbers around and watch the ratios change or scale in accordance. It’s highly instructive to get a real time visual representation of what’s going on. Don’t get me started on pixel aspect ration though…glad everything is going square.

Best regards,

Kevin Camin

[Michael Gissing]

Kevin, 720 x 576 is 4:3SD PAL. I know the numbers aren’t perfect but a device designed to take this will display as 4:3.

The PAL SD timeline in FCP will produce the correct letterbox to display a 16:9 original on a 4:3 screen.

[Kevin Camin]

That’s interesting. Sorry I unfortunately don’t do much PAL work. Does the 720×576 SD normally come with the pixel square? It would seem odd to me that a video picture frame made today would want a non-square pixel since even the simplest camera phone is shooting HD.

Best regards,

Kevin Camin

[Rafael Amador]

[Michael Gissing] “Kevin, 720 x 576 is 4:3SD PAL. I know the numbers aren’t perfect but a device designed to take this will display as 4:3. “
720×576 is 4×3 or 16×9, depending of the pixels aspect (4×3 or PAL Anamorphic).

[Kevin Camin] “That’s interesting. Sorry I unfortunately don’t do much PAL work.”
PAL or NTSC, 4×3 or 16×9, is the same when we are displaying on a computer screen (Squared Pixels).
To display the picture properly we have to keep the 4×3 or 16×9 relation in each case.

[Kevin Brower] “Thanks guys It worked by creating a 576 timeline and dropping in 1080 footage. It automatically put on the letterbox bars. I then put it in streamclip and converted it to Mpeg 4 so I could play on my picture frame.”
Thats wrong.
Unless your time line has SQUARED PIXELS.
If the pixels are not Squared, QT will keep displaying the picture wrong.
And do you really want letterbox?
Do things well.
Your picture is 16×9, so keep that relation:
1920 x 1080
1280 x 720
1024 x 576
800 x 450
720 x 405
640 x 360
560 x 315
480 x 270
..etc..
..etc..
16 x 9
All those sizes will make computers display the picture properly 16×9 whatever the movie is HD, or SD, PAL or NTSC.
When dealing with PAL SD 16×9 (720×576 Anamorphic) the best option is 1024 x 576.
Rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com