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  • Adobe After Effects

    Output Dimensions

    Posted by James Baker on May 22, 2008 at 3:44 pm

    I have some questions about dimensions for broadcast.
    Sorry if they have been asked before but I cannot find
    any clear answers in the forums.

    I have read that if you are showing a widescreen piece of work on DVD it needs to be outputted as 720 x 576 but with the widescreen setting and aspect ratio 1.42?

    Is this the same if you are supplying a file to be broadcast
    on TV or can it be supplied and broadcast in widescreen dimensions?

    Is this standard practice? Does this not significantly reduce
    the quality when it is stretched to the widescreen size?

    Also in after effects should you scale the widescreen film into
    the 4:3 composition so that it has black bars on the top and bottom?

    Do these black bars have some special code to distinguish them from
    normal pixels. How does the player recognise the widescreen film inside the 4:3 in order to stretch just that area.

    What happens if you have the DVD video file set with dimensions
    1024 x576?
    Will it play normally on a widescreen tv and then be cropped on
    a standard one or will standard one squash it?

    Also if a DVD video with HD dimensions like 1280 x 720 is played on a SD tv will it fail to play or playback incorrectly?

    Any feedback would be greatly appreciated

    James

    Mark Himsley replied 17 years, 8 months ago 2 Members · 2 Replies
  • 2 Replies

  • James Baker

    May 23, 2008 at 12:52 am

    Thanks for your reply. I have another issue which I am unsure about relating to the relevant dimensions to use.

    I am under the impression that the square pixel equivalent of 720 is 788 and not 768.

    If so why is the preset not 788?

    If you are making a composition in after effects to be shown eventually on a non square pixel device like a DVD player should you make it in 788 x 576 so that it is the same real space area as 720 x 576?

    Should the same be applied to the equivalent widescreen dimensions which I am led to believe is 1050 x 576 instead of 1024 x 576?

    If this is true do you know why these dimensions aren’t in the presets?

    Thanks, James

  • Mark Himsley

    September 10, 2008 at 2:25 pm

    > The people at Adobe have already thought about these things for you

    Hogwash.

    The people at Adobe get pixel aspect ratios wrong by about 2.5% all the time.

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