TIPS: Notes on image planes and Pixel Aspect Ratios...

couldn't help but notice Kino had mentioned the image plane not rendering precisely...thought I'd share these useful tips which took me an age to find out!!!
I found that if I render out (often this is the case for me!) to 720x576QuantelPal format, And I have some source footage that I want to view in the ImPl. Often this footage is 'Anamorphic'(stretched!!). In my RenderGlobals I set the preset to 'CCIR/PAL/QuantelPal' then there are two more options below the preset: DeviceAspect and PixelAspect. To view this 'anamorphic' footage as a widescreen ImgPlane, you need to set the Device Aspect to 1.77. you'll notice the PixelAspect changes to '1.416' (thanks for that!). Now heres the real sods trick. When you view the imgplane thru VIEW/CAMSETTINGS/RESOLUTIONGATE you'll see your image doesn't fit the resolution gate. Arse! What you now need to do is play with this little option called 'LENS SQUEEZE RATIO'! select the camera, and open your attributes. Under FILMBACK options you'll see the lens squeeze ratio. SET THIS VALUE (which should be at 1.0) to THE SAME VALUE AS YOUR PIXELASPECT RATIO (I mentioned this earlier: 1.416). You should find that your resolution gate now matches perfectly with your ImgPlane. If you compare the original ftg and the ftge with your render on you should see there is no change in the ftge at all. Best still is that when you render an image, your rendering out to that really annoying 'Anamorphic' format that all TVdesigners have had to F&Blind at since it reared its ugly head!! hope this all makes sense to anyone interested! ant ^_^