Rendering to the proper aspect ratio

keynstring wrote on 6/5/2003, 6:17 PM
I'm unable to find the correct settings to render a project in 4:3 aspect ratio. I was succesful once when burning a default VCD from the tools. My parent clips were captured at 720x480. I've tried using default MP2 templates but the results seem to be larger than 16:9 and short of a full 4:3. What am I missing? Thanks

Comments

rmack350 wrote on 6/5/2003, 7:00 PM
720x480 does not =4:3. 704x480=4:3. Somewhere in there you need to crop the image.

However, if you intend to show this on a TV then TVs mask the image and you do indeed see a 4:3 image. TVs, since the 50's, aren't very precise in their side to side placement of the image. That's one reason why the actual image can be wider. In addition, since the standards were set in the 50's, tube technology was especially slow at going from picture to black at the start and stop of each raster. So there's extra image space available at the right and left edges of the image.

When the image is digitized, this extra slop accounts for the pixels in excess of 704.

The actual 4:3 image area is 704x480. WHICH 704 pixels is kind of a matter of luck.

For computer or projector display you should be cropping the sides of your project to 704 wide and then rendering to 640x480 or some other square pixel, 4:3 format (like 320x240, for instance)

It may be possible to render your project from 720x480 to 640x480. It will slightly distort the picture just slightly and people in the movie will be pleased that they look a little thinner (but they won't be concious of it-it's that slight)

Rob Mack
keynstring wrote on 6/6/2003, 1:41 PM
Rob,

Cropped the clips then rendered to 640x480 seems to have worked. thanks for the assistance.
TheHappyFriar wrote on 6/6/2003, 2:29 PM
I've rendered from 720x480 straight to VCD and SVCD and they both look good. From what it looks like, the DVD player (what I use) will automaticly make the picture fit to the TV. Doesn't looks stretched, thinn, etc. Try it once and see if it works.