960x720 ftg looks squished in AE
by Brad Stewart
on
May 8, 2008 at 4:37:28 pm
I'm working w/ some green screen ftg. Captured in Final Cut at HD (960x720) w/ DVCPro HD 720p 60 codec. I export the ftg., w/ no compression, million colors, at current size, which strangely shows up as 637x358. I import that in AECS3. It comes in at 960x720 but it looks squooshed. I key it and render it w/ animation codec at 960x720. I import that back into final cut (or avid) and it looks fine. This is how I have always done it.
The problem today is that I have to provide my client with a matte and a fill. When I give them the rendered file from AE (QT file) it looks squooshed. The client will use these files in flash which I know nothing about. They want to know why the QTs I provided them look wrong. Can anybody explain?
Re: 960x720 ftg looks squished in AE by Dave LaRonde on May 8, 2008 at 9:25:32 pm
[Brad Stewart]"I export the ftg..... which strangely shows up as 637x358."
Let me guess: you looked at it in Quicktime.
"It comes in at 960x720 but it looks squooshed. I key it and render it w/ animation codec at 960x720. I import that back into final cut (or avid) and it looks fine."
You need to learn about Pixel Aspect Ratio. This is where cameras and certain applications don't treat pixels as being square, but rather some form of rectangular: narrow or wide, depending on the footage. In the case of DVC Pro HD, the pixels are wide: they have a pixel aspect ratio of 1.33. A pixel aspect ratio of 1 is square.
FCP knows about that 1.33 ratio for DVCPro HD, and so does AE -- all you have to do is toggle the pixel aspect ratio compensation switch on the comp window. The picture will look aliased, but you'll see it in the proper aspect ratio. You already know that the renders from AE look just fine.
"When I give them the rendered file from AE (QT file) it looks squooshed... They want to know why the QTs I provided them look wrong."
Tell you what: keep this as much of a no-brainer as possible for the client. Re-render your stuff, but first drop those 960x720 comps into 1280x720 comps.... 1280x720 being the square-pixel version of a 16x9 720 picture. Use the "scale the layer to fit the comp" command, Command-option-f. Then render in the codecs you used before.
The client will quit freaking out.
Dave LaRonde
Sr. Promotion Producer
KCRG-TV (ABC) Cedar Rapids, IA
