my footage screams 960x720

J

JitCam

Well-known member
ive been wondering about this for a while and have asked before on the forum.. but still im not convinced.. maybe im doing something wrong...

when i shoot in 720p mode.. and transfer the mfx file to my hdd the file in after effects is seen as 960x720.. ok so i make a 1280x720 timeline and drag that in right? lets say also that i render this footage out full frames uncompressed.. does this mean that there is going to be loss in the footage from stretching it up to 1280x720? shouldnt the mfx file be at a resolution of 1280x720? isnt that what 720p is on the hvx?

Something else also.. when i watch the mfx file directly from a video viewer in windows it also displays it at 960x720.. at which the footage looks nice and sharp of course.. however.. when i double click to watch it full screen the footage stretches to full screen and u can tell there is a loss of quality because of the stretch, the aspect ratio is fine, it displays it with black bars top and bottom as my monitor is 4:3. My monitors resolution is set to 1280x1024 so i would think a full screen view of the mfx file would be sharp.. :Drogar-Thinking(DBG
 
In raylight I also noticed this when converting MXF to AVI.
The only difference is, the image when played back looks squeezed.

Im wondering if this is a recording setting as well.
 
Well, technically yes, because the full 1280 pixel width was never recorded but it is what you have to do. There is no way around it. You shouldn't notice a difference.
 
Correct me if I am mistaken, but converting a non-square pixel into a square pixel shouldnt give any "visible" quality loss. All of the info is there, its just squezzed horizontally. Your HVX records with pixels that are taller than they are wide, in post these pixels are then un squeezed into square pixels.
 
Not sure I understand all this. Why do I need to convert the footage to being a square pixel? Because that's what playback devices will read?

Surely FCP should be sorting this kinda stuff out for me? Should I be making a sequence at 1280x720 and then turn off the 'correct for pixel ratio' button?
 
If your working in After Effects, just make sure your 1280 x 720 comp is set to square pixels.
 
Actually, you should render to the apropriate pixel aspect ratio of the format you are encoding to. If you are encoding back to DVCPro HD, then you should use the pixel aspect ratio for that codec when utilizing it for output. If you are rendering to mpeg4 then, yes, use square pixels.
 
If your working in After Effects, just make sure your 1280 x 720 comp is set to square pixels.
Click to expand...

yeah i do that.. basically i set the project settings to HDV 720 25, the dvcprohd has a res of 960x720 as output.
 
Sorry to be so dense at this, but I'm more of a writer than anything else...

I'm working on a project where I'm looking to export out to an uncompressed 8-bit end result. I'll be using animation codecs, jpegs, HVX footage, and greenscreen stuff keyed in AE essentially onto the same timeline. I figured I'd precompose stuff to make it all the same and usable.

If I set up my AE stuff at 1280x720, then end up squaring that, it won't sit next to HVX footage on a timeline without rendering in FCP right? I'll need to either sort out the HVX footage to sit it on a 'square pixel' timeline, or keep the stuff coming out of AE at the 1.33 pixel?....
 
Redcloak said:
If I set up my AE stuff at 1280x720, then end up squaring that, it won't sit next to HVX footage on a timeline without rendering in FCP right? I'll need to either sort out the HVX footage to sit it on a 'square pixel' timeline, or keep the stuff coming out of AE at the 1.33 pixel?....
Click to expand...

No, you don't have to do all of that work :)

You should be able to bring the HVX footage into AE without having to pre-process or recompress it in any way. Just right click and interpret the footage to make sure that AE sees it as having a 1.33 pixel aspect ratio and it will adjust for the footage to work properly with your project and all of the square pixeled elements.

AE can mix and match various pixel aspect ratios into a single project. It's just a matter of making sure that AE knows the info through the "interpret footage" dialog.
 
also down at the bottom of the comp window in the same line as the views and the image size and resolution pull down menu options there's a 16x9 button at the far right you can push and it makes everything look normal, it looks like a box with two arrows. If that was too hard to understand I can take a screenshot and highlight the button.
 
there is a preset in AE for DVCPRO HD. just use that. or just drag the footage onto the make new comp button and it is set. you may have to click the aspect correct button to view as 16:9 but keeping it at 960x720 is the way to go until your final output.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top