What Aspect Ratio Sequence Setting for a 4:3 SD TV Commercial?

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neilw

Member
Just moved up from FCE to FCS2. Do commercials for small market cable and broadcast in SD 4:3 in FCE. Now in FCP I see a sequence setting for Frame Size: Aspect Ratio: NTSC DV that shows 3:2 aspect. Not really clear on what this is and after pouring through the manuals and searching this forum, still don't get it.

In the end, I want normal SD 4:3 TV commercials. In FCE, it was a simple NTSC setting. Does my sequence in FCP need to be 4:3 or 3:2? Need a little education on this option and can't find any explanation anywhere.

Thanks for the help.
 
3:2 (720x480). NTSC uses non square pixels, but once it's broadcast, it'll appear properly as 4:3. FCP will display everything properly as well so you don't have to worry about it much early on.

Use the NTSC DV Easy preset. Sets everything up for you.
 
Yeah it's a little confusing the way it's labeled but you want the NTSC DV 3:2 aspect setting- the most important part is that gets you full 720x480 resolution. What FCP labels as 4:3 is designed for 640x480 web output I guess.

Noah
 
Okay. Doesn't make sense, but I guess a lot of this works that way.

So what I see in the canvas for an aspect ratio is not what will end up on TV, correct? Had me concerned.

And as far as outputting it to a QT MOV for the local cable company (they have no specifications and have always accepted a MOV from FCE), just use the Export>Quicktime Movie>DV NTSC 48 (assuming my sequence is 23.98)? Or Current Settings if my sequence timeline were 29.97?

Thanks for the explanation. Wish that were in some obvious spot in the manuals! Might be, but hard to find.
 
No, as far as aspect ratio goes, you'll see the proper dimensions in the canvas (ie. 4:3). If you have everything configured properly, then you can just use Current Settings.

I've been doing TV commercials for local broadcast for the last 3 years. Here are some quick tips:

- Double check on as many TV sets as possible,
- At some point, you want to get a broadcast monitor for preview while you are working - really important because what you see on your LCD is not the same as what you'll get on TV,
- Keep all your text within the title safe area (the inner square),
- Keep text big and simple, no fancy fonts - you want it to stay legible,
- Put a fade in and fade out at the start and finish,
- Don't start any audio till a few frames in - with some stations, it can cut the audio at the start, so give it some time,
- Keep the luma (brightness) legal, make sure you have nothing going over 100IRE on the scopes, slap a Broadcast Safe filter just to make sure,
- Don't go above -3dBFS for audio - some stations want it much lower (-12dBFS),
- Get as many books, read as many articles as possible,
- Ask for help!
 
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Very Helpful! Thanks. If I submit the commercial to the cable company via an uploaded QT MOV, and I used a 23.98 timeline, do I need to change the export settings to somehow put it back to 29.97? When I export via Quicktime Movie using Current Settings, the resulting MOV shows a 24 FPS in the inspector. Is that a problem or will it resolve itself on their end?
 
Seem to have encountered a problem. I assumed that to convert to 29.97 I could use Export>Quicktime Movie, then use the DV NTSC 48 setting instead of the Current Settings option. However, the exported QT drops out the last couple shots of the commercial, a couple jpg's prepared in PhotoShop as NTSC 4:3 stills. Every other type of export doesn't have a problem (Current Settings, Export>Quicktime Conversion, H264, etc.).

Am I doing something wrong? Making the wrong selection for changing from 23.98=>29.97? Should the jpeg's be brought into the sequence NOT in the NTSC-corrected format?
 
I don't have much experience with working with 23.98 so hopefully someone else will join the conversation and sort this out for you.

From what I remember, there is some 24p that you can just edit in 29.97. With other 23.98 footage, you need to reintroduce a pull-down pattern to make it go to 29.97. I'm not sure if you can use Compressor for that or not. But try it, export a with Current Settings, then use Compressor to convert it to 29.97 using the NTSC DV preset?
 
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