High res photo slideshow on DVD: possible? How?

[mkelley]

Both have been "adjusted" so that they will play properly in the 4:3 display aspect ratio on TV. On the PC (with a displayed pixel aspect ratio of 1:1), the NTSC version is a little bit fatter (as it gets "thinned" on TV) and the PAL version is a little bit thinner (as it gets "broadened" on TV). That is, the TRUE image in the correct aspect ratio is somewhere between the PAL and NTSC images.

Most people should be able to notice the difference between the PAL and NTSC in the 1:1 displayed pixel aspect ratio (or else get your eyes checked!)
6!

Michael,

While I haven't gotten around to burning DVDs yet this weekend, I am by now convinced Premiere 6.5 does indeed handle this correctly.

What convinces me is *this* setting for indiividual files (which can be images or clips): "Pixel Aspect Ratio". Here's what it says about it:

*********************************

It is important to set the pixel aspect ratio for a file at its original ratio, not the ratio of the final output. You can set pixel aspect ratios for clips and projects with these approximate values:

Square Pixels

Uses a 1.0 pixel aspect ratio. Use this setting if your video has a 640 x 480 or 648 x 486 frame size.

D1/DV NTSC

Uses a 0.9 pixel aspect ratio. Use this setting if your video has a 720 x 480 or 720 x 486 frame size, and your desired result is a 4:3 frame

**************************************

(and it goes on to talk about PAL, widescreen, etc. etc.)

By default a still image comes in with an aspect ratio of 1.0, and NTSC clips at .9 (the program is smart enough to apply these as the stuff comes in). So this is how Premiere "knows" to compensate the final output of these in the right pixel ratios, regardless of how you've prepared them.

If you go ahead and adjust your images to 720x480 (as we used to have to do) then you would use the .9 setting so that Premiere won't further adjust them. But if you prepare them with square (fat) pixels of 640 x 480, Premiere is smart enough to know it has to fix these when output.

So I guess it was just my ignorance of Premiere (and my laziness at not converting the images beforehand) that made things come out right, but as I said to you earlier, the images looked right to me (and I've seen images that were not right plenty enough times with our NLE suite).

This is really pretty cool because keeping the pixel sizes straight was always a PITA for us, since we had sources coming in from a variety of places (digital cameras, scans, 3D renderings from Max, clips). Now I just have to keep it looking right on the computer and Premiere handles the rest.

[mkelley]

I did some more checking -- I have to say it, those folks at Adobe are *real* smart.

It occured to me you might go to the trouble of resizing your images before you bring them into Photoshop which (by default) would turn them back into square pixels (that it knows it will "fix" in output). So I created an image at 720x480 (which is what you'd end up with if you resized correctly a 640x480 image for NTSC). I also created one at 721x480. Guess what?

Premiere "knew" the 720x480 was sized correct and set the aspect ratio at .9. It "knew" the other one wasn't, and set it at 1.0 (to be resized in ouput). Obviously you can override either of these, but it's nice to know you don't have to think too much (I'm an old man and can't afford much thinking :>)

Just to keep everyone clear on this, this is NOT the same as the "Maintain Aspect Ratio" option for each image/clip. If your images are not cropped in the appropriate ratio (4:3 for most TV) then you need to make sure this option is selected. It will then apply the aspect ratio assigned to the clip (.9 or 1.0 or some other depending upon either what Adobe thinks will be right or what you override) and make sure the clip fits.

IOW, if you have an image at, say 4000 x 3000 pixels, you can just import it into Adobe (without correctly for any TV standard) and Adobe will handle it just fine. If it's some odd ratio, like 3240 x 3000 pixels, you will need to make sure "Maintain Aspect Ratio" is checked, and then Premiere will put black at the appropriate (sides or top/bottom) places to make it fit. In either case, it is not necessary to precorrect it for fat versus skinny pixels, as Adobe will handle this as long as the "Pixel Aspect Ratio" setting is right (and unless you accidentally crop something to 720x480 beforehand you will be okay).

The bottom line -- just bring your images in and Premiere will do the rest. Nice.

[simone17]

I tried Ulead DVD Picture Show 2 (VCD) 704 576 images and I must say works great (no transitions) . Gonna try on DVD-R to see what happens with transitions and antiflickering filter on.
Bye and thanks all.
Simone

[vitualis]

It seems like Adobe Premiere has fixed it then...

It was still an issue in v5.x and you're right, it' a PITA to fix manually...

Regards.

[verchad]

I have been using windows moviemaker 2.0 to create my slideshow with transitions and music, feeding the movie to my firewire camcorder, then recording it to my panasonic dmr-hs2, then record each movie(s) to dvd-r. Works okay. The hs2 menus are plain and there is no music playing when you pause on a picture, but the pictures look great blown up on tv. My daughter loves seeing herself.