16:9 problems

[newbie_geek]

Hey all...

I have a series of 720px by 480px TIFF images that i want to create a DVD based slideshow out of.

I am building the video component in Adobe Premier, and exporting to m2v format for DVD Lab Pro. When i export the video chunks through the "adobe media encoder" in premier pro, and then burn the DVD, i get a video that has the image in the middle of a 16:9 black box!

This is obviously not the idea.

So here is what i am left wondering:

1 - what the heck is the pixel ratio of 16:9? That is, is 720 x 480 correct?

2 - how do i export from Premier so i get a full frame 16:9?

3 - does a 16:9 encoded video mean that the dvd player that handles it will know to automatically tell the TV that plays it to go into widescreen mode?

Thanks Guys.

[guns1inger]

NTSC DVD full D1 video is 720 x 480, whether it is widescreen or fullscreen. The difference is the pixel aspect ratio.

I don't use Premiere, and haven't in years, so I'm not sure how it handles 16:9, however I assume you have to set up the project as a 16:9 project, and export (render) the video as 16:9 so it has the correct pixel aspect ratio and sets the AR flags for 16:9 playback.

If your video is encoded and flagged as 16:9, and oyu author as 16:9, and your player is correctly setup to display 16:9 discs as widescreen (and not letterboxed), then you should fill a widescreen TV with image.

The results you are getting give me to believe you are outputting 4:3 letterboxed from premiere.

[newbie_geek]

it seems that the project is set as 4:3, meaning that then i encode as 16:9 something goes "blip", and that presumably is what is causing my video to be a wide image in a black box right?

And as a followup, i wonder, for widescreen viewing does the pixel aspect make enough of a difference to bother with it?

[guns1inger]

You have to change the project properties to 16:9.

What are you going to watch this back on ? If you encode as 4:3, then on a widscreen Tv you will either have large black borders all the way round the image, or you will have to zoom in, making the image quality lower than it needs to be. If you encode it correctly as 16:9, the TV will display it correctly, at the fully encoded quality.

[newbie_geek]

gotcha, thanks for the help.

[newbie_geek]

oh poop...

I have just opened a new adobe premiere pro project with the 16:9 aspect ratio... and have imported by 720 x 480 tiffs to start re-building the slideshow, but here is what i notice...

the images are still being flanked by black space! WTF? Well upon closer inspection i see that the sequence i am adding them to is

"720 x 480 (1.2)"

and the images are

"720 x 480 (0.9)"

what does the 1.2 and 0.9 mean in this case? And what do i need to do to get my source images "1.2 compliant"?

Thanks

[newbie_geek]

okay, 1.2 and 0.9 are the pixel aspect ratios

that i have figured out

but now i wonder how i can convert a 1.0 source still into a 16:9 compliant 1.2 aspect without "stretching" the image.

Thanks

[Alex_ander]

How to prepare your images to get proper aspect ratio in the end. That's not for any particular software but what you use should be set up to work this way.
1.Crop original images to 16:9 pixel ratio (e.g. 1600x900 if you originally have 1600x1200, BTW this answers your first question).
2.Resize what you get to 720x480 with disabled 'keep aspect ratio' setting.
3.Encode the sequence (without further resizing) to MPEG2 with 16:9 setting (with MPEG you have two choices, the second you don't use here is 4:3). And as you asked, yes the player will get the info from the file to stretch 720x480 (3:2) horisontally for displaying it as 16:9.

[newbie_geek]

Okay, so the idea is to input an image that is squished FROM 16:9 to a 4:3 image. Thus when it is stretched BACK to 16:9 it is stretched back to it's original proportions.

Am i following that correctly?

Seems like an unecassary mess. Is it really worth all the effort? Will it really have a big enough impact on the final image quality?

Cheers.

[Alex_ander]

Okay, so the idea is to input an image that is squished FROM 16:9 to a 4:3 image. Thus when it is stretched BACK to 16:9 it is stretched back to it's original proportions.
Am i following that correctly?
Cheers.

The idea is to 'fill' the 3:2 'fullscreen' matrix of 720x480 with a 16:9 image at encoding/rendering (that's how the NTSC DVD frame is stored in both 16:9 and 4:3 cases); when you select 16:9 for encoding you just add extra info to the encoded file for playback with correct proportions. If your image files had been prepared for 16:9, you'll keep image proportions on TV.
In a video editor the final resizing for an MPEG encoding (e.g. 720x480) is usually performed at outputting ('rendering') a project. You simply need to keep your 16:9 picture resized to 'full screen' while editing (with disabled 'keep aspect ratio', no centered - so that no borders were added), then render using a DVD MPEG2 template (this will also perform the final resizing to 720x480).

[newbie_geek]

I have managed to implement all of that flawlessly... everything looks great.

EXCEPT i now seem to be suffering considerable image quality loss.

That is to say that the DVD's i have made using the approach you mention is giving me stills that sort of "pulse". They cycle between being smoothly rendered, and having noticable traces of encoding artifacts. And this is with both 1 pass VBR and 2 pass VBR and with both quality settings being at 2.1 and 5.0. So i am at a loss now.

Ideas?

[newbie_geek]

i think i have if figured out

my VBR settings were a tickle low, it is all cool now.

Cheers.