Alright, to keep things simple, I'll be referring to aspect ratios by their simplified versions, e.g. 16:9 is the same as 1.78:1 (divide 16 by 9). I'll leave out the :1 for the sake of simplicity.

Ok, so I was just playing around in Adobe Premiere 6.5, and I noticed something. Some of the aspect ratios were kinda screwy. Standard is supposed to be 1.33 (4:3), am I wrong? Well ADOBE'S standard is 1.5, a bit wider than 1.33 (I found this out by the pixel length and width).

Even stranger is Adobe's widescreen. It's advertised as 16:9 (1.78), but it's actually 1.95, and their anamorphic setting is a whopping 3.13. I'm guessing this is all of NTSC, not just premiere, because a project I shot in 16:9 (The Hi8 I used simply put black bars on top and bottom, which I think is more convenient than the squished screen) was ALSO in 1.95

So what's the gig? Did NTSC just screw up? Or have I gone completely off the deep end? And more importantly, if I'm right, what should I do for future projects, shoot in standard (can only shoot in standard nowadays) and crop to a true 1.78 or stick to this 1.95 hooplah?

Ha! You may have gone completely off the deep end (why were you doing these calculations for anyway?), but you're not wrong. What it has to do with is the difference between DV and analog NTSC and how they transfer. Digital ntsc is 720x480 while analog is 640x480 (or 486, but that's a whole 'nother issue).

If you are using a Hi8 and digitizing via a card, you should be editing in a 640x480 timeline (not the 720x480 timeline you probably are editing in). If you are digitizing through a ieee1394 card, which adds left and right black bars to compensate for the 40 pixel difference, you should be in a 720x480 timeline. The 40 pixels are never seen because they get cropped by the TV.

Now, why does all this matter? Are you planning to present your video anamorphicly? Or, do you just want to letterbox your video? You can letter box whatever aspect ratio you want–there's no need to adhere to a standard. Crop to whatever you want. If you're presenting anamorphicly, the most important thing to do is make sure the PAR (pixel aspect ratio) is 1.2 (not .91), but then you gotta squeeze the footage and all that other crap.

Joren

www.JorenClark.com || The Wallet @ ReWind

Ok, so the difference between all this crap is digital and analog. So....when I capture some footage off my VX1000, clip it to 1.95, and then export it via videotape or DVD....will the actual ratio be down to 1.78 again?

I ask because if I ever decide to try and distribute my work one of these days, I don't wanna run into "Oh, sorry, there's nothing we can do about this. This is in some freaky 1.95 setting, and it has to be in 1.78."

Umm, I think you're kindof missing the point. It can get really confusing, I know. You should edit the footage in whatever timeline size the footage was shot, and digitized in. If you go to DVD (which is 640x480), when you encode the mpeg-2, it will automatically convert your xv1000 footage that was edited in a timeline of 720x480 to the proper size. When you make a tape dub, the video card will automatically format it properly for NTSC.

Now, when you're editing footage that was imported through a video card (640x480) and footage that was imported through firewire (720x480), I'd edit on a 720x480 timeline, which will force all the Hi8 640x480 footage to render.

You shouldn't be cropping or clipping any of your footage, unless you're going for a letterbox look. All the conversions should happen automatically when you export. Just make sure your timeline is the same as whatever format the footage was digitized in.

Remember that DVD-NTSC and VHS-NTSC are solid formats that are always 640x480. If it will play on your DVD or VHS player, it will play on theirs. Once it's on DVD or VHS, they probably won't even know that it was shot and editing 720x480.

Joren


www.JorenClark.com || The Wallet @ ReWind

And, just to add to what I said. The whole wide-screen thing is irrelevant. It's always 640x480. The exception is the very rare wide-screen television, but like I said, instead of changing the 640x480 size to something wider, it changes the PAR to 1.2.

If you choose to letterbox your footage, you can letterbox to whatever aspect you want, but it won't ever change the 640x480 size that they will view it in (you're just changing the size of the black bars top and bottom). I've letterboxed several projects and I don't even know what the final 'aspect' my picture was. It doesn't matter. I letterbox to the size I thought was the best for the look of the project.

joren

www.JorenClark.com || The Wallet @ ReWind

I know Avid and Final Cut let you pick between square or non-square pixels.

like joren said it might not make much of a difference, but sometimes it might come up. we always keep it on non-square pixels.

look up in the adobe guide, or the peach pit press books about them.

Liek joren said, it really doesnt matter generally in the end. But for the record, it does have to do with square versus non square pixels. Do the math on that one, it works out. 16:9 in square pixels is 1.5, non square it is 1.33. If you want another explanation of it, check this link out:

http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Makeup/4303/dvdratios.html

The content may be odd but it defines it rather well.


The only time this should be of any concern is probably when working with a combination of both square and non square pixels. Photoshop has recently added support of non square pixels as well to handle video stills better.
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