Exporting video

[sbryan]

Source Material: DVX Footage shot in squeeze mode. Widescreen Square Pixels.

How do I export footage in After Effects to work with Encore DVD's rigid import requirements (720x480, 720x486, or 704x480)?

I can't do 864x486 or 720x405 -- which are correctly scaled...

Why is it exporting never works for me? You would think I would have more trouble... you know... editing.

 

[abennett]

Probably because you have issues.

Really though, I'd like to know the answer. Let me know when you find out. We need to finish this project. Its so close...

 

[Kevin Dorsey]

720x480, 1.2 pixel aspect ratio. These should be your After Effects comp settings as well. This will give you a file that when burned to DVD, will appear normal when viewed on a widescreen tv, and letterboxed on a 4x3 tv.

 

[sbryan]

720x480, 1.2 pixel aspect ratio. These should be your After Effects comp settings as well. This will give you a file that when burned to DVD, will appear normal when viewed on a widescreen tv, and letterboxed on a 4x3 tv.

This is what I've been told, and it has never worked for me in the Production Suite or its predecessor. The only way I've ever been able to deliver the correct aspect ratio is by burning directly to DVD through PP.

Here are some images:

-Footage Untouched in Premiere Pro. As you said it's in the correct aspect ration at 720x480.

-Here's the composition settings that don't work, but should according to what you're saying:

-Here's the composition settings that are true to the source material, but apparently no other program can read it.

-Imported on a timeline as an asset, the image is screwy.

-Standing on its own, and using the Pixel Aspect Ratio Correction Button under the Monitor Window, the sequence looks fine.

-And why wouldn't there be an error message preventing me from exporting as anything other than a Windows Media file, AKA .avi?

I hope this set of images helps... If these settings look flaky, a reinstall won't help as I've tried that.

 

[Matt Grunau]

Source Material: DVX Footage shot in squeeze mode. Widescreen Square Pixels.

How do I export footage in After Effects to work with Encore DVD's rigid import requirements (720x480, 720x486, or 704x480)?

I can't do 864x486 or 720x405 -- which are correctly scaled...

Why is it exporting never works for me? You would think I would have more trouble... you know... editing.

Encore does not have rigid requirements, and your first sentence is your problem.

Source Material: DVX Footage shot in squeeze mode. Widescreen Square Pixels.

DV footage is never square pixels, widescreen certainly isn't, and DV's frame dimension are always 720X480 (of course, we are assuming NTSC here). 864X480 is the frame size with square pixels that will fit in 720x480 in widescreen mode. You are not shooting anything at that frame size, everything you shoot is 720x480. Not sure where you got the 864 number from, but it's screwing you up because you keep going back to it. Ignore it, imagine it never poked its head out. The only reason you would need anything at 864x480 would be if you were generating full frames in something like Photoshop, and had to use square pixels, which since the release of CS, you don't even have to worry about.

The only difference in anything you do in Squeeze mode or whatever is the size of the pixels themselves.

If you can not get AE to properly display your footage with the default widescreen preset, you are doing something wrong out of Premiere. I've never had nor heard of this problem before. And you are using after effects as an NLE instead of a compositor. I can't think of why you are using AE with a 7 minute project.

Try exporting only the parts you need from Premiere as Quicktime files with the Animtaion codec at 23.976 progressive, with the widescreen pixel aspect ratio.

And like Sacksnack said, squeeze mode is only going to look normal when viewed on a widescreen tv, otherwise you have black bars. In the future, if you want that widescreen look, shoot normal and add the widescreen bars in post. Besides, shooting in squeeze mode only gives you 75% of your total resolution, the rest is chopped off the bottom and top to allow the illusion of 16x9.

-Here's the composition settings that are true to the source material, but apparently no other program can read it.

Those composition settings are NOT true to the source material, and that is why no other program can read it. Those settings are true what square pixels would fit in a true widescreen format. DV NTSC is 720X480, period. The only thing that can change is your pixel aspect ratio, which for you, is Widescreen 1.2.

Forget the 864 number. Just use the presets for widrescreen.


Lastly, your error message on export is happening because you are exporting with the wrong frame dimensions. If all you can do it work with 864 in AE, try to export at 720 with the widescreen pixel aspect.

 

[sbryan]

So I'll never be able to view footage correctly on a 16:10 monitor or a 16:9 TV, but I'll be able to view it on a 4:3 TV? In other words, what I see on my monitor is the squeezed version of what I would see on the TV (See images 4 and 5).

I was told exporting through After Effects would deliver better results, plus it uses my system resources more efficiently than Premiere Pro 2.0.

 

[Matt Grunau]

You should be able to see it properly on a 16:9 tv, and on a 4:3 it will have black bars on it.

When you use the pixel aspect correction button, it shows you what your TV will look like. Your computer monitor has square pixels, so showing footage with non square pixels and with the aspect correction off, you don't get an accurate picture. That's why that button is there, to let you see what your footage will actually look like with the correct aspect ratio.

As to exporting from after effect VS premiere, I dunno, I use Vegas, not Premiere. But I cant understand why one would look better than the other. Where did you read/hear that?

But I know that you can use enhance edges in AE, so that would make the footage look a little better. If you are going to encode something to DVD, I don't think there would be much of a difference, they both use exactly the same mpg converter.

My advice again, avoid squeeze mode. It really isn't worth it, and since you can lay black bars on top, you have the ability to move each clip up or down to reframe it to perfection. Not sure how that would work on a 16:9 TV, you may have luck exporting wide screen with the black bars and the DVD player will take them out when played on the TV.

Here are a couple of Photoshop documents for wide screen bars. One is standard 16:9, and one is 1:235:

http://www.dvxuser6.com/uploaded/6995/1177523167.zip

 

[sbryan]

Matt,

I'll try exporting with standard settings and burn a simple DVD with Encore. Premiere must automatically adapt to the footage, whereas I need to hit the button in AE 7.

Thanks.

 

[sbryan]

I think I've learned not to record in squeeze mode...

I exported the video using After Effects and burned a DVD using Encore. After Effects still gave me that error when trying to change to the MPEG-2, MPEG-2 DVD, or Windows Media Player codecs, and all my other settings were standard. This may, in fact, be a problem with the installation, but I'll call Adobe before I throw 90 minutes away on an uninstall/reinstall.

Back to the widescreen issues, I played the DVD back on my 4:3 TV, and while it was Widescreen, it was incorrect Widescreen. It looked like 1.5:1 instead of 1.85:1. I compared a frame on the DVD with a frame in my PP editing timeline, and it was clear that 10% of the image was missing from the left and right side.

I guess that leaves two options:

1) Could somebody shoot a 30 second clip on the DVX in squeeze mode, and let me know what project settings you choose for editing and exporting? I'm convinced I'm editing correctly because it looks natural and the footage windows have a 1.85:1 ratio.

2) I could open a remote assistance session via Windows XP or Webex and work with somebody on the issue.

P.S. -- What does the 1.2 in Widescreen 1.2 mean? It's not an aspect ratio, because that would be tallscreen...

 

[Matt Grunau]

You are always going to have an amount of image not shown on your TV. That's what Title Safe and Action Safe guides are for. The fact that your TV wasn't showing everything your monitor was is completely accurate. I'm not sure why TV's cut off the right and left sections more than top and bottom, but they do. I don't think it's a problem with your footage, only that you need to have some monitor setup while editing.

Most will say to have a genuine NTSC monitor that you calibrate often. For those of us who can't afford them yet, I use a farily high end Sony 21" TV. I have an old camera that no longer works in tape mode, but DOES work well as an firewire interface between my software and my TV. You just set up your program to video preview via firewire, have a camera handy, set it to VCR, and output your video signal to the TV. It's not the best solution, but it is better than guessing.

Just export your video in NTSC DV widescreen format, and you should be ok. If you are still getting an error, it is because you are not exporting at 720X480.

As to the loss of left and right footage on you TV, that's natural. Expect it. Some call it overscan, there are other names for it. I just call it my TV doesn't show as much as my preview window, so I make sure everything really needed is in the action safe area.

There is probably not as much wrong with your footage as you think, and remember, you know what it should look like, people watching it wont. You can get away with quite a bit in that sense. I can help you via remote assistance if you need, and we could use skype, or windows messnger.

But I think you are ok.

If your video still looked very wrong, looked too stretched, it may be because you are still using square pixels, when you shouldn't. That will definatly stretch your video.

1.2 in widescreen is your pixel aspect ratio. instead of thinking of pixels as square, think of them are rectangles, roughly twice as long as they are tall.

 

[sbryan]

Here's my Adobe Premiere Window with Safe Margins:

Here's a close approximation of what my TV displays:

Notice how the TV is showing things to the far right, but cropping mostly from the left side of the frame. The DVD plays back perfectly in Windows Media Player. As in, the whole image is intact.

Weird?

 

[Matt Grunau]

It's your TV. On mine it would be a little different, on someone elses it would still be a little different. It's going to play fine in Windows media player becasue WMP shows the whole thing, you TV wont. Again, not a problem with the footage.

 

[sbryan]

If results vary that much, how do I adapt when shooting? I have ScopeBox on the Mac, which has title safe margins, but I'm giving up a lot of image in my TV screen capture...