[Eric Steinberg]

The client wants the letterboxes on the final output, and wants to get 720×576 final output

Just to make confirm: The client wants a 4:3 final output with letterbox? It’s pretty common to output 16:9 anamorphic, which also is 720×576. The difference is the pixel aspect ratio, which is 1.07 vs. 1.42. But if it in fact is 4:3 with letterbox, here’s how I would suggest your workflow:

1. Import your footage and interpret it just as it is: 1920×1080, non-interlaced, square pixels (and whatever frame rate the footage is.. probably 25fps).

2. Edit your piece in a composition that is the same: 1920×1080, square pixels, etc.

3. When your done, drag that composition into a new composition which is set to regular PAL: 720×576, PAR 1.07, and scale the footage down to fit (I think it’s 40%).

4. Render.

There is more than one way to do it, but that’s how I do it anyway.

Should I turn on PAR correction display in order to see what the client will see on a TV connected to the DVD that contains the final material ?

Yes, in the final comp you’re rendering. This is only for previewing, and doesn’t affect the render.

Hope this helps.

Kind regards,
Eric

[Eric Steinberg]

Although I’m not sure exactly what look you’re going for, here’s one way you could do this:
Try duplicating your body layer, isolate the body parts you want to glow in the top layer, and apply a blur to the top layer. Then use the “ADD” transfer mode or play with other transfer modes till you’re happy with the result. Also play with the opacity setting of the top layer, if the result is too intense. You can of course also add a glow effect to the top layer and play with all three variables: Glow effect, transfer mode, opacity.

Hope this helps.

Kind regards,
Eric

[Eric Steinberg]

After you add the effect “Zoom Forward”, twirl down to the following location on the text-layer in the timeline:
Text
> Animator 1
> Range Selector 1
> Advanced

Then change “Shape” from “Ramp Down” to “Ramp Up”

Kind regards,
Eric

[Eric Steinberg]

Thanks for all your input, I’ll make a decision soon!

Kind regards,
Eric

[Eric Steinberg]

Thanks for your reply,

I actually got a response from Boris support, and for this particular upgrade, I don’t have to uninstall BCC 4. Here’s what Boris support wrote:

“… The CD reads the licensing of the prior version and that’s the reason for the installer telling you that you might want to uninstall the previous versions of BCC. This is because if After Effects has more than one install of BCC, each filter in both versions of BCC will create an error message saying that a duplicate filter had been found, and that After Effects will use the later one – with BCC 4 and BCC 5, this can lead to several minutes of just hitting the “OK” button before you launch After Effects. Since you’ve upgraded your After Effects, you won’t need to do this, although from this point on you might, as the CS3 now has a ‘common area’ in which both After Effects and Premiere Pro read the plug-ins, and it’s possible that the next version or two might read from the same.”

So next time I upgrade AE/BCC, I will have to uninstall the old version. I tried what they said, and it seems to be working ok.

Kind regards,
Eric

[Eric Steinberg]

Ok, thanks! I’ll give it a go.

Eric

[Eric Steinberg]

Thanks! 🙂

[Eric Steinberg]

No, I would rely on the “unsquishing” to happen at the PC level before it reaches the projector, and still show it on a 16×9 screen. Shouldn’t that work?

Eric

[Eric Steinberg]

Ok, I understand now. Thanks for clearing that up!
I think I have a solution: I’ll just make additional downconverted versions in SD, so that they can choose to use SD when neccesary. They will (unfortunately) probably be renting different equipment from time to time.
I have been going back and forth so many times now how to do this, and right now I’m leaning towards playing it from the timeline in Premiere Pro on a high-end laptop with a raid and a killer GFX card. I agree that Wings Platinum may be overkill for this. Besides, I really need to start creating content soon, and not just do research on delivery systems. So, my plan is: Create all versions in both 1920 x 1080 HD and 720 x 576 anamorph widescreen SD. Get a powerful laptop with 3 disks (1 for OS and 2 in a RAID for video), great GFX card and Premiere Pro installed, and just play back from either a HD or an SD timeline in Premiere. Does this seem like a good solution, or are there any pitfalls I haven’t considered?

Kind regards,
Eric

[Eric Steinberg]

Thanks for your 2 Canadian cents! 🙂
I have a question about your comment about HD possibly not being the best choice: I would think that if we want the quality to be as good as possible, HD would be better than SD..? I don’t undertand why HD would be a bad thing, could you please explain?

Kind regards,
Eric