Safe Zone

djcc wrote on 1/3/2004, 7:07 AM
When placing text, MS offers a safe zone guide that can be displayed at a number of percentage values. Is there a way to universally apply this safe zone to all events of a rendered video so that the maximum size does not exceed the specified safe zone? I realize I can use the pan/zoom feature to reduce the size of everything, but that would be very labor intensive....

When I play back completed projects on my TV, the top and bottom of the screen are being clipped off beyone an acceptable amount.

Thanks
=Don=

Comments

JohnnyRoy wrote on 1/3/2004, 5:49 PM
TV does not show the full picture. It simply can’t. What you are seeing on the computer preview is more than you will ever see on a TV. This is OK. If you never loaded your footage into MovieStudio and just played your DV camcorder though your TV you wouldn’t know what you’re missing. The Safe Zone guides are there to show you where to place titles and overlays so they will be within the area that most TV’s will show. And there lies the problem. Every TV will be different. So even if you scaled all the video to fit in the safe zone, another TV might show more of it and you would have black borders around the edge of your picture. Just use the safe zones as a guide for titles are overlays and don’t try and scale the video itself and you’ll be fine.

~jr
djcc wrote on 1/4/2004, 8:55 AM
Thanks JR.... In this particular instance, it was still photos that I was concerned with. Some of them are cropped tight enough where important details are being lost, expecially at the top and bottom. For a still image, it is sometimes more important that the entire image be shown, even if it leaves a bit of a black border. I do, however, agree about the video.

I am curious though - what are common safe zone percentages? Mine appear to be defaulting to 10%, and that appears OK on my primary Mitsubishi 36" tube TV.
JohnnyRoy wrote on 1/5/2004, 5:16 AM
I believe the standard safe zone for video is 10% and for titles is 20%. That’s because you won’t notice if video is cut off but it will be very obvious if a title is cut off.

~jr