Why does export “adds 30 pounds”?

[David Roth weiss]

I’ve encountered the same phenomenon with DV material provided to me by one client, which requires manually setting exports to 640×480. Meanwhile, DV from all other sources correctly exports at 720×480.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

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A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[ibsmith] “WHY!? That doesn’t make sense. “

Depending on where you are watching this, it makes total and absolute sense. 720×480 DV NTSC video is a non square pixel format for display on TVs. If you watch this in a square pixel display (any LCD monitor for example, like your computer monitor) the aspect ratio is wrong as you are playing a non square aspect on a square display. Now, 640×480 is a square pixel format. So when you watch it on a square display, it looks just fine. So, what’s your ultimate output and where are you watching this?

Jeremy

[Ian Smith]

The destination for this video content is on-line. I do understand that there are differences in pixel dimensions, though maybe I’m still just not getting the big picture.

What I’m trying to understand is what I’m doing wrong, if anything. Is the operation I’m doing correct, and the export process is like this for everyone… or just me? What can I do to make sure I’m following the same “shoot video, capture, and export” process as everyone else?
I do feel silly asking these questions, especially having a degree in this, but I do crave the full understanding for the process of my work.

My operation is: Shoot video using the 4:3 deminsion setting > Import making sure my settings are the same > edit project with 4:3 (720×480) sequence settings (footage still looks correct and not skewed) > but then, export 720×480 (and footage is fat) > re-export this time using 640×480 for perfect outcome.

Perfect outcome is great for me, but I want to know why if the entire time I’ve worked on the project all has been set to 720×480, why export using 720×480 would be skewed? Would it look correct on a television screen, and just not my monitor?

Sorry to bombard you with all these questions, I appreciate your time and help very much!

[Rafael Amador]

– Open your clip with QT player.
– Click COMM-J (properties)
– Click Video Track
_ Click Visual Setting.
– Uncheck “Preserve Aspect ratio”-
Now adjust the values in “Scaled Size” to make your clip look as you want. You can save those values and your clip will play always with this aspect.
Rafael

[Jeremy Garchow]

[ibsmith] “What I’m trying to understand is what I’m doing wrong,”

You aren’t doing anything wrong. Native dv video is 720×480 Non square pixels. If you need to format for web, what you need to do is export a native dv reference movie, then take that movie to Compressor or Squeeze or Episode Pro. Then set up the parameters for a square pixel resolution like 640×480. If you notice in FCPs viewer (and don’t let this confuse you anymore) but the aspect ratio is corrected for you so it looks right in the viewer. Of course if you are monitoring through an NTSC monitor of sorts, this aspect ratio is also corrected. If you check out the left drop down box on the top middle of the viewer (the one with the percentages) you will see a checkbox called ‘show as sq. pixels’. That means show as square pixels. If you uncheck that box, you will see the native format of the video. FCP adds this option so it looks like it should on a square pixel monitor (such as your LCD monitor).

Make sense?

You are doing the right thing. Shoot, capture, edit, export. Don’t worry about the aspect ratio correction until the very very last step when you do you encoding for the web. Then, you can change the non square pixel video to square pixels.

If this doesn’t make sense, let me know and I will try to explain it further.

Jeremy

[Jeremy Garchow]

[JeremyG] ” If you check out the left drop down box on the top middle of the viewer”

This also works in the canvas as well.

[Ian Smith]

I think this is making sense now! I have also been working on a DVD for the final video of these several, all shot and edited the same, and once imported into DVDStudioPro, I noticed that the original export from FCP had to be 720×480 this time, rather than 640×480, … because it’s going into the px ratio of television, and it makes the adjustments I’ve been curiouse about.

This is great! I’ve always hear that the day you don’t learn something is the day you die… this means I’m free to live another day!

Thank you! And all who have contributed to this post!