Question about exporting to televsion...

[Dascurf]

I am trying to export a video file to DVD for playback on TV. I am doing 720X480 with aspect ration of 4:3 but the TV is cropping the sides off of the video. Do I drop it down to 640X480? Do I go smaller? If any of you guys are video-heads please let me know.

 

Thanks,

Justin

[MMZ_TimeLord]

Justin,

 

Generally when you do the animation you have a camera view with the outer pink/purple box that shows your rendering limits.

 

Then there is an inner pink/purple box... that one shows what is 'tv safe' or will ALWAYS end up on your television screen for viewers.

 

Took me a while to get used to that.

 

There is also a 'title safe' frame, I haven't played with it.

 

Both the 'tv-safe' and 'title safe' options can be turned on or off in the camera object properties.

 

Hope that helps.

[robcat2075]

720x480 is for pixels that are about 0.9 the width of square pixels. (and this presumes you've rendered 0.9 aspect ratio pixels in A:M, otherwise your image is wider than 4:3) That's normal for TV but if the DVD authoring software can't recognize that then you'd have to compress it to 640x480.

 

There's probably a setting in your software.

[Dascurf]

I actually editing .mpeg in Premiere 6.5. I'm done with my A:M part. I suppose this is more of a video tech. question. I should have been more specific I suppose.

[sbk]

Hi Justin,

 

If your piece doesn't fit within TV safe limits-- the distance between the outer parameter and the inner box is "action safe", the inner frame is also called title safe, and relates to what would be cut off a curved TV screen- then your editing software MAY have a filter to help with this, e.g., if you've rendered "widescreen" and you need a 4:3 master. I know Final Cut and Avid can do this. If you're going for TV 4:3 ratio SD, then you want 720x480 or 720x 486 (DV or D1) and the pixels are .9, not square. It sounds like you're not widescreen as such, although "squeezed" widescreen still has an aspect of 720x 480, but if the sequence settings are wrong, everyone is tall and thin with "alien heads"...

 

Also before you re-render or anything else, your DVD authoring software may be able to format the clips as "pan and scan" if they are widescreen. This basically takes a widescreen "film" frame and crops it so that it will play 4:3. You can only do this if you are in the project file of the DVD software, as far as I know. Squeezed DV pixels are a little wider than they are tall --1.22, I think.

 

As a rule, try reformatting your frame (pan and scan) before you give up any resolution.

 

I'm assuming you made your animation, burned it to DVD and the TV screen is cropping it, then I think you'll find the answer in your DVD authoring software prefs. You'll have to burn again, but that's no great issue.

 

If it's your animation that is outside the title safe area in AM originally, the violins are playing, I feel your pain. Been there...once. That was enough.

 

I hope it's a quick fix, a setting somewhere.

 

Seana

[Slipin Lizard]

Actually, the "action safe" and "title safe" shouldn't be the cause of your problem. They are just arbitrary guidelines that let you know that anything outside of their boundries may be cut off when viewed on certain television sets. Thus the terms "title safe" which is used for titles and assures that what is within its boundries will be seen on all TV sets, and "action safe" which is basically saying it's really unlikely to be cut off on any TV set. Any editing software should not be looking at the title/action safe areas, I've never heard of those regions being encrypted with a video file when rendered.

 

I think the issue is that somewhere along the rendering chain, your aspect ratios are not matching up. When you say its cropping on the sides, it almost sounds like the video file is being transcoded as 16x9 for the DVD. In other words, the DVD authoring program is saying "we're going to make a 16x9 widescreen image", then when it gets your video file it recognizes that it is a 4x3, and thus crops the sides to keep the image looking normal.

 

It can be a little tricky when going through different programs to keep the aspect ratio correct all the way through the work flow. Does the image look squashed? stretched? These are indicators that the software is interpreting the video file in a manner you do not want. A bit of a check list:

 

-check your intial render settings and pixel aspect ratio.

-play the rendered file on you computer, does it look right?

-if you are using a non-linear editing program before importing to DVD, check those render settings, and look for options such as "maintain original aspect ratio" sometimes considered an "advanced" option.

-in the DVD software, what are the transcode settings? The DVD software will be set to some sort of aspect ratio, find out what it is and make sure its the same as your video file (in this case, 4x3).

-some DVD authoring programs let you preview the DVD before you burn, again, check to see that the video looks normal.

 

If all else fails, you can do a circle test. Just do a short, say 10 second animation of a perfect circle, sitting motionless on your screen. Then run the animation through your work flow until you find where it gets distorted. This will at least let you determine which software/process is culprit.

 

One of the things I love about the Adobe suite, is that from After Effects, to Premiere, to Encore DVD, it all works together seemlessly so this issues are a lot less frequent and easier to fix.