DVCPRO HD export aspect ratio crazyness
by Patrick Petersen
on
Aug 14, 2008 at 2:13:59 am
So, when I export a DVCPRO HD 720 30p timeline in Compressor or QT Compression to 320x240 (or any 4:3 aspect ratio), it elongates the picture, no matter what settings I change. I've tried to figure it out for a long time, and I've found pages that say it's a bug, and that DVCPRO HD is really not 1280 x 720 and has weird (1.333) pixels ... long story short, can I get correct aspect ratio via letterbox in a 4:3 frame size?
Re: DVCPRO HD export aspect ratio crazyness by Rafael Amador on Aug 14, 2008 at 4:07:47 am
No bug at all.
If You have a 16x9 picture and you want to show it in a 4x3 screen, you have two solutions:
- Crop the two sides of the 16x9. In this case the movie will fill the screen but you will lose part of the picture.
- Letter-boxing. You will see the whole of your picture with a black band on top and down.
Open in FC a 8b-Unc 4x3 sequence (Progressive) and drop your DVCProHD movie on it. Resize to picture or let it letter-boxed. Export with QT conversion 320x240.
rafael
Re: DVCPRO HD export aspect ratio crazyness by Patrick Petersen on Aug 14, 2008 at 6:27:24 am
No way to get the desired results if the timeline is already DVCPRO HD. Because rendering all the time kind of sucks. There has to be a group of settings or compression that can add two simple bars to a 16:9 picture. But thanks for the advice, that'll at least work for some projects! :D
Re: DVCPRO HD export aspect ratio crazyness by Jeremy Garchow on Aug 14, 2008 at 2:51:58 pm
Two options. Make a 16x9 aspect ratio (such as 640x360). No letterbox. It's much cleaner.
or
Mess with the padding in the geometry tab. For example if you want a 640x480 with letterbox you have to do a bit of math first. 640x360 is a 16x9 image. So take 480-360 (which equals 120) then divide that by 2. 120/2=60. So add a pad of 60 pixels on the top and 60 on the bottom. You can preview this in the COmpressor window to make sure you got it right.
Re: DVCPRO HD export aspect ratio crazyness by Patrick Petersen on Aug 14, 2008 at 5:28:18 pm
Yeah, that's how we've been doing it. It just seems, from the different checkboxes and DVCPRO HD presets and all, that theres's a more elegant, maybe less lossy way to do it. But yeah, buffers are how we've been doing it. What causes this? Because other formats letterbox fine with the right settings ... Thanks, by the way, you guys all rock. Hard.
Re: DVCPRO HD export aspect ratio crazyness by Jeremy Garchow on Aug 14, 2008 at 6:06:57 pm
Well, DVCPRo HD is Natively 16x9 squeezed to 4x3. In roder to properly show the correct 16x9 aspect ratio, you are going to have to stretch it out somewhere. Compressor does a fine job of this.
Re: DVCPRO HD export aspect ratio crazyness by Patrick Petersen on Aug 14, 2008 at 7:38:53 pm
Well, if that's the best way, it's the best way! Thanks a bunch. Now, I am a little confused. You said it's 16:9 squeezed into 4:3. My (probably way off) understanding was that it's 4:3 (960x720) stretched to 16:9 (1280x720) by using rectangular pixels (1.333). These are probably dumb questions, but I'm self-taught so my knowledge is hardly textbook. Thanks again.
Re: DVCPRO HD export aspect ratio crazyness by Patrick Petersen on Aug 15, 2008 at 5:26:37 pm
Then (bear with me here) how does the frame size (dimension) get bigger? If it's 960x720 native, to become 1280x720, doesn't something have to get stretched?
Re: DVCPRO HD export aspect ratio crazyness by Patrick Petersen on Aug 15, 2008 at 8:04:49 pm
Are we talking about the same thing here? I think I might have misled you awhile ago by saying 1280x720, when I should have said 16:9. I'm talking about how the camera shoots it compared to how fcp displays it (4:3 data looks 16:9 in fcp by 1.333 PAR). I think you're explaining how the export process you suggested changes it (16:9 into 4:3 by letterbox). It's my bad, I typed the wrong thing earlier. If that's the case, I'm pretty sure I get the whole enchilada now. Or am I wrong? Either way, thank you so much for the help thus far!
PS: Don't you think FCP would have made a idiot-proof way to do this by now? It's kinda confusing and DVCPRO HD is a very common format ...
