Aspect Ratios / Dimentions / HD Problems

[Aviewanew]

I've been reading a bunch, and it's really difficult for me to absorb this, I can't see to get it:

I have a bunch of videos from my cousin's wedding captured from a Sony HandyCam in HD mode. They are 853x480, 29.97 FPS
I want to edit them in Premeire.
I want to burn them to a nicely authored DVD.
I (obviously) want the aspect ratio to work and look good no matter what TV it is played on. I know the bride & groom have an HD TV, and my grandmother has a ordinary TV.

So my questions are:

1) This video *is* HD right? I thought it was supposed to be 1440x1080, but this is the only video off the camera... The picture is very clear though.

2) What Project Settings do I use?
I could use NTSC 16:9, but this crushes the video horizontally in Premeire to 720x480 which made me think it was wrong.
I could alternatively use custom settings with 853x480 -> but this gives me output problems: I either use Raw AVI or DV to keep the video quality (any other codec goes to shit) -> but DV once again changes the resolution to 720.

Thanks in advance.

[edDV]

I've been reading a bunch, and it's really difficult for me to absorb this, I can't see to get it:

I have a bunch of videos from my cousin's wedding captured from a Sony HandyCam in HD mode. They are 853x480, 29.97 FPS
I want to edit them in Premeire.
I want to burn them to a nicely authored DVD.
I (obviously) want the aspect ratio to work and look good no matter what TV it is played on. I know the bride & groom have an HD TV, and my grandmother has a ordinary TV.

So my questions are:

1) This video *is* HD right? I thought it was supposed to be 1440x1080, but this is the only video off the camera... The picture is very clear though.

2) What Project Settings do I use?
I could use NTSC 16:9, but this crushes the video horizontally in Premeire to 720x480 which made me think it was wrong.
I could alternatively use custom settings with 853x480 -> but this gives me output problems: I either use Raw AVI or DV to keep the video quality (any other codec goes to shit) -> but DV once again changes the resolution to 720.

Thanks in advance.

1) 853x480, 29.97 FPS is wide DV not HDV. What was the camcorder model? Sony HDV models can output either as 1440x1080i HDV (MPeg2) or as 853x480i wide DV.

2) For 853x480, 29.97 FPS use the wide DV project setting. Also encode to wide DVD settings.

[Aviewanew]

I'm trying the Adobe CS3 Beta, and Premiere Pro - I can't find Wide DV presets anywhere (tried google too).

[manono]

1) This video *is* HD right?

No, just regular old standard def, same as 16:9 resized DVD. It's sometimes called Enhanced Def.

I could use NTSC 16:9, but this crushes the video horizontally in Premeire to 720x480 which made me think it was wrong.

I don't use Premiers, but from your description, it's resizing to 720x480, which is what you want for DVD, followed by encoding for 16:9. Everyone is supposed to look tall and skinny at 16:9 720x480. After the encoding and authoring, when being played back as a DVD, it'll get resized back to your original 853x480

[edDV]

I'm trying the Adobe CS3 Beta, and Premiere Pro - I can't find Wide DV presets anywhere (tried google too).

In Premiere Pro, select New Project and one of the choices offered should be wide DV 720x480.

[Aviewanew]

Oh okay, I was looking for 853x480. I got it, thanks guys! I will take a trip back home to see what I can do about recapturing HD source from the miniDV discs.

[guns1inger]

You can't get HD from mini-DVD discs - they record in SD only.

[edDV]

Oh okay, I was looking for 853x480. I got it, thanks guys! I will take a trip back home to see what I can do about recapturing HD source from the miniDV discs.

Wide DV and wide DVD are 720x480 in the file with non-square pixels. The software player or wide TV will expand the picture out to 853x480 square pixels for playback display. An HDTV will upscale 853x480 to the native display resolution for that TV.

720x480 wide looks like this


Square pixel (853x480) looks like this


The same applies to HDV where the file is 1440x1080 (non-square pixels) but the player expands that out to 1920x1080 (square pixels).

[Aviewanew]

I went back to the discs - they're not MiniDV, they're DVDs, and the captured video is 1440x1080, but when i use the HandyCam program to convert, it shrunk it. But I found a way to work in the full resolution, so I'll hang on to the project files and hold out for a friend with a Blu-Ray or HD DVD Burner.