New comp – DVCProHD 720-4:3 aspect preview

[Joey Foreman]

Okay, look. We just established that using p.a.c. causes visible edge artifacting with this footage – therefore you have to use a broadcast monitor to see it full quality.
I’d say that Final Cut does a great job of displaying it on the computer, without the need to toggle a switch to tell it to display it in the proper aspect ratio.
Let me ask you this. What video footage format do you personally work in?
When you import that footage and drag it to the make comp icon, do you then have to toggle p.a.c. just to be able to see a jagged aliased version of it in an approximation of sort of how it might look in the right aspect ratio?
Or is the default “approximation” you get good enough to do color keying, rotoscoping, and everything else that AE is meant for?
You might remember a few years ago when AE had no video output?
I guess it really wasn’t suitable for video output then since it actually only displayed an “approximation” of how the video would look.
Why is it so hard to understand that all i’m asking is for the ability to take DVCPro footage, drag it to the make comp icon, and have the result be a normal quality – non aliased – proper aspect ratio displayed image in the comp window?
Pixel Aspect Correction is not an acceptable substitute for a custom square pixel comp. Not if you’re doing greenscreen work, or just prefer that your footage not look like jagged crap.

[Joey Foreman]

By the first “video output” I meant for external display on a monitor.
By the second I meant rendering for broadcast.

[Darby Edelen]

I simply work with pixel aspect correction on when I need to make sure that the aspect of my footage and graphics is correct (which is most of the time) and turn it off to view the actual pixels and verify that the quality of the footage is good. Not having any pixel aspect ratio correction at all is more accurate in terms of the actual pixels than viewing it with pixel aspect ratio correction in FCP (yes it is a toggle, you can turn it on or off just like in AE).

I’m sorry that you find AE’s implementation so ghastly, but it’s not at all difficult to work with. FCP does a better job of interpolating the anamorphic stretch, but personally I think that may just contribute more to people misunderstanding how their footage is actually encoded (such as 960×720 in the case of DVCPRO HD).

I think we’ve established that it’s a matter of personal preference. But just so that you know, FCP is doing the exact same thing that AE is doing… It’s just doing it slightly differently.

Darby Edelen
Lead Designer
Left Coast Digital
Santa Cruz, CA

[Darby Edelen]

[Joey Foreman] “Pixel Aspect Correction is not an acceptable substitute for a custom square pixel comp. Not if you’re doing greenscreen work, or just prefer that your footage not look like jagged crap. “

Also, just so we’re clear here, you’re actually blurring your footage slightly (just like FCP does for its ‘correct’ preview) when you put your 960×720 DVCPRO HD footage into a square pixel comp. If anything this will hurt green screening.

Darby Edelen
Lead Designer
Left Coast Digital
Santa Cruz, CA

[Joey Foreman]

Darby, thanks for taking the time to continue this dialogue. Obviously I’ve had a hard time coming to terms with AE’s handling of this kind of footage, but thanks to your explanation it makes more sense. In one of my first posts in this thread, I used the phrase ‘pixel aspect creation‘ when i meant correction. I’m sure that contributed to a lot of the initial confusion, and I apologize.
I guess it’s still a bit tough to accept that in order to work correctly with this footage from now on – without an HD monitor -I can only view the footage in the comp as either squished or aliased. My pick.
I don’t find anything ghastly about AE. I’ve used it and loved it for seven years now. I just wish AE’s pixel aspect correction looked as crisp and antialiased as it does in the native apple appications.

[Darby Edelen]

[Joey Foreman] “I guess it’s still a bit tough to accept that in order to work correctly with this footage from now on – without an HD monitor -I can only view the footage in the comp as either squished or aliased. My pick. “

My suggestion might be to have a ‘working comp’ and a ‘preview comp.’ Leave the working comp in the footage’s native resolution (960×720 with 1.33 PAR in the case of DVCPRO HD) and drag a copy of the working comp into the preview comp, which can be at 1280×720. Then it’s a matter of switching back and forth between them to check your work, hopefully that works for you.

Just another way to look at things =)

Darby Edelen
Lead Designer
Left Coast Digital
Santa Cruz, CA

[Joey Foreman]

I’ll give it a shot. Thanks.

[Terrence Dunlop]

Awesome. Thank you. Solved it right away.