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Question on Pixel Aspect Ratio
Hello – (I read the guide on Pixel Aspect Ratio, but I still couldn’t get this to work)….
I’m creating a composition in Flash and would like to import it into After effects for some editing. Finally I would like to push that to Encore DVD to create a DVD.
I created the flash comp at 720 x 540. What do I need to do to make sure the aspect ratio of the pictures stay the same?
Do I need to export the flash swf at 720 x 480 (squashing it) and then create a comp in AE that’s 720 x 480 with square pixels?
If I do that the left and right borders of the pictures seem to be lopped off once I create the DVD in Encore.
Any information anyone has would be helpful. Thanks!
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2 Replies
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Know that as an editor, AE is a fine compositing application. If you can do your editing work in Premiere, so much the better: it’ll be LOTS faster.
If you have no other choice but to work in AE, continue working in AE at 720×540. Keep it up until you have what you consider to be a FINAL AE comp, something that’s ready to put on DVD. Only at that point do you do the following:
Create a 720×480 comp; use the DV NTSC comp preset. Put your final AE comp into it. Now scale your only layer in the new comp using the “Scale the layer to fit the comp” command. That’s not it’s real name, but that’s what it does. The keyboard shortcut for it on a Mac is command-option-f, and on a Windows machine I’m pretty sure that it’s contol-alt-f.
Poof! You’re done. You’re ready to render at DV resolution.
Dave LaRonde
Sr. Promotion Producer
KCRG-TV -
Thanks Dave –
Two remaining problems:
1. I did what you said, exported as a Quicktime compression Sorenson Video 3 and imported in Adobe Encore DVD. When I burned the DVD, the edges of the picture were cut off. Is this because the original file (a Flash file) was square pixels and is now in rectangular?
2. I went back into AE, and I shrunk the composition to 90% (the “action safe”) of the 720 x 480 composition (this is after using the shrink to fit command from the previous export). Now when I tried to export, it won’t work. The Sorenson Video 3 export looks fine for the first 10.5 minutes, then the last 4 are unwatchable. These are the other codecs I’ve tried:
AVI – uncompressed – resulted in saying “bad media” Didn’t finish
Quicktime – uncompressed – resulted in saying “bad media” Didn’t finish
Quicktime – Animation – worked, but transitions were not smooth. I tried to import in Encore anyway, and got this message:
“file is 23.976 frames/sec, must transcode now.” Then it freezes. The file should be 29.97 frames/sec, that’s how I set it.
I’ve tried a few other codecs as well. Most of them compress poorly.
Anyway, I have a 14.5 minute presentation in AE that I would like to burn in Encore DVD without losing quality (or very very little at least).
Why is this so hard? I would think this should be easy.
Any imformation would help. Thanks again Dave!
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