DV-PAL pixel aspect ratio & Quicktime confusion...

Hi all,
Hoping someone can clarify some things for me! Here's the situation...
I'm extracting some clips from a DVD, for another editor to put together a showreel. The clips are all off the telly in 4:3. I extracted the clips using MPEG Streamclip, the Quicktime Export option and the Apple DV PAL codec 720 by 576.
First question - it offers me an 'unscaled' output option of 768 by 520. Why 768? Is this something to do with Quicktime only using square pixels and DV PAL video using rectangular?
Second question - Assuming the other editor will be using Final Cut to put the showreel together, which is the most convenient picture & pixel aspect ratio to provide the clips in? I know I can change the pixel a.r. if I drop the clips into a Final Cut timeline and fiddle with the sequence settings. Is that necessary or helpful?
I'm pretty sure the DV codec is the best to use for this exercise, but any thoughts welcome...
Cheers,
Ilan

It can be very confusing. Here's a great place to start....
http://documentation.apple.com/en/finalcutpro/usermanual/index.html#chapter=70%2 6section=13

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Pixel Aspect Ratio Discrepancy

My first project after being upgraded to CS4 (with Matrox Axio) was supposed to be very simple and wasn't. A :10 sponsorship billboard with animated background we always use (avi), client supplied logo (tga), and announcer audio track (wav). Set up the project/sequence to be D1/DV 0.9, just like always. Targa file was also 0.9. So far everything is normal. Then rep decides they want a plain blue background instead of the animated one, and would like to add a phone super. Made a solid blue background in the title generator, again 0.9, and when I put it on the timeline, I could no longer see video. Even if I dbl clicked on it, I couldn't see either background or logo in the source monitor. In case the title generator didn't like making a color solid, I re-made the graphic in Photoshop, again 0.9 tga, created a new project from scratch, imported my sources and when I put the background on the bottom track, again I couldn't see any video. I changed the pixel aspect ratio of the tga background to square pixels, put it on the timeline and that worked. I could see the logo again. So I made the phone super in the title generator and thought okay...square pixels. Brought the title graphic onto the timeline, and couldn't see any video. Changed the title graphic back to 0.9, brought it back onto the timeline, and it worked. So I had a background targa graphic in square pixels, a logo targa graphic in 0.9 and a title graphic in 0.9. One more thing that was a new experience for me was that a box popped up that said I needed to scrub through the sequence before it would play in real time. So I did, and it played. Can anyone share with me some logic to this discrepancy? Thanks.

I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that Adobe changed the PAL pixel aspect ratio from CS3 to CS4?
I've fallen foul of this a couple of time.
There's some information here:
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/AfterEffects/9.0/WS3878526689cb91655866c1103906c6dea-7f3aa.htm l
about halfway down the page
and more here:
http://blogs.adobe.com/toddkopriva/2009/07/pixel_aspect_ratios_in_after_e.html
which has some useful links.
Although they're mostly talking about After Effects, this applies equally to Premiere CS4.
HTH
Mark

The (new) Premiere pixel aspect ratio is wrong for my PAL DV cam footage

I've had a Sony TRV-950E DV-cam since 2003. I've been shooting DV PAL in widescreen.
I just bought Elements 12 to edit my footage, and discovered that the pixel aspect ratio for D1/DV PAL Widescreen has been updated to 1.46 (old value 1.42).
The theory behind this change is that video recorded on 720x576 is slightly wider than 16:9 and that the 16:9 portion is 704x576.
Unfortunately this is not correct for my footage! I've captured the video from my DV-cam (by firewire) and opened it in Premere and it is streched to be shown as 1050x576.
So I did a test:
I filmed a steady shot of a perfect circle and captured the video from the camera and opened it in Premiere. The pixel ascpect ratio 1.46 makes the display 1050x576.
The question is: Am I seeing this displayed as a perfect circle now?
This can be tested:
I make a picture of a perfect circle in Photoshop (square pixels) with size 1024x576. I imported this picture into the Premiere project, and match the two circles: The filmed one, and the Photoshop one.
They DO NOT match! The one on the video is slightly stretched in width.
So then I stretch the Photoshop picture in width to become 1050x576. I then import this picture into the project. And now I have a perfect match between the circles!
This means that my DV camera actually records a 100% 16:9 picture on all the pixels 720x576 - and not a slightly wider picture with the 16:9 part being in 704x576 (which is the reason for the change in pixel aspect ratio from 1.42 to 1.46).
I have some HD scenes that I want to import (and downscale) into my SD project also, and I also have a lot of still pictures.
Unless I can change the setup i Elements to the correct ratio 1.42, these stills and sqare-pixel-video (HD) should ideally be streched from 1024x576 to 1050x576 to match (become equally stretched as) all the SD footage.
How do I solve this?
I just bought Elements 12 three days ago.
(I just tried opening the captured video in Windows Movie Maker - and that program must use pixel aspect ratio 1.42 since the video is diplayed correctly as 1024x576 with a perfect circle)
Regards,
Tom from Norway

Tom
After much thought and exploration and experimentation, I have come to the conclusion that there is no practical purpose for doing anything other than importing your media into the project and editing/exporting. I find no distortion in doing so, be it in the video samples that you posted or in still models that I created for the pixel aspect ratio 1.422 vs 1.4587 for D1/DV PAL Widescreen.
If you have not already, please read the following about the Adobe DV Widescreen Pixel Aspect Ratio change from 1.422 to 1.456.
Please start in the first link which gives some get subsequent links in it
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/673877
http://www.mikeafford.com/blog/2009/03/pal-d1-dv-widescreen-square-pixel-settings-in-after -effects-cs4-vs-cs3/
Also, you may find the following article on square and non square pixels of interest. It uses the PAL DV Widescreen 1.422 pixel aspect ratio in its discussion.
http://library.creativecow.net/articles/gerard_rick/pixel_madness.php
Aside from the explanation for the rights and wrongs of the matter, this is what I actually observed taking your PAL DV AVI Widescreen and PAL MPEG2.mpg Widescreen into the same Premiere Elements 12 Windows PAL DV Widescreen project. Along with your video files were still images that I created in Photoshop Elements 11 Full Editor:
1024 x 576 document with a red circle on Layer 2 of the Layers Palette
1050 x 576 document with a red circle on Layer 1 of the Layers Palette.
The red circles were superimposed in creation. The difference in the pixel dimensions between the two are evidenced by Layer 1 content peaking through on the left and right.
The gpsot readout for pixel aspect ratio for each of the videos was
a. Your PAL DV AVI 720 x 576 Widescreen = 1.422
b. Your PAL MPEG2.mpg 720 x 576 Widescreen = 1.422
Each of the Photoshop Elements documents (circles) saved as .psd files 1050 x 576 pixels.
When all were taken into Premiere Elements 12 project manually set for PAL DV Widescreen, they looked like the following, no display of distortion.......
PAL DV AVI Widescreen 720 x 576 (now the pixel aspect ratio in Premiere Elements Properties was shown as 1.4587, not the 1.422 seen in gspot before import)
PAL MPEG2.mpg Widescreen 720 x 576 (now the pixel aspect ratio in Premiere Elements 12 Properties was shown as 1.4587, not the 1.422 seen in gspot before import)
Edit Menu/Preferences/General with check mark next to "Default Scale to Frame Size" was in effect.
As for the red circles stills (1050 x 576 to equate to the square pixel version of 720 x 576 widescreen) did not distort when brought into the Premiere Elements 12 Edit area monitor which is established by the PAL DV Widescreen project preset with the pixel aspect ratio = 1.4587.
The jpg version of the Photoshop Elements document (.psd) 1050 x 576 pixels (square pixels) looked like:
And, when this Timeline was exported Publish+Share/Computer/AVI with the DV PAL Widescreen preset, there was no distortion in the export. It looked undistorted as it did before export.
So, unless I am overlooking a key point here, I cannot see a reason why you cannot use the video sources that you presented for sampling as weil as stills with the 1050 x 576 pixel dimensions.
The only time I see any distortion possibilities is if you use a player that does not recognize the 16:9 flag that stretches the 720 x 576 to 1050 x 576 for display after encoding.
Trying to convert Premiere Elements 12 which uses the 1.4587 pixel aspect ratio for PAL DV Widescreen into a Premiere Elements 7 which uses the 1.422 pixel aspect ratio for PAL DV Widescreen is up hill in spite of creative thinking on your side.
Please review and let me know if you are seeing another different from what I am reporting with the samples that you posted.
Thank you.
ATR

Confused about pixel aspect ratio and video size

Hello,
I have edited a whole dvd full of video and exported it as MPEG-2 NTSC DV Wide - it says 720 x 480, 29.97 fps. I have brought these into Encore and am trying to make a menu but can't seem to get the menu size right. Since I chose the wide format when making the video, which aspect ratio should I use in Encore? It gives me a choice in the properties menu, but when I go to Project settings it says Codec: MPEG-2 Dimensions 720 x 480. Whenever I bring in a menu background from photoshop, it doesn't fit, and is further complicated by the pixel aspect ratio thing. I have no idea what my background size should be to make it fit properly - the templates seem to all be the 4:3 size. What size should I be using in Photoshop and which pixel aspect ratio?
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In that sense, yes, I want to have something play back at 16:9, but at least some of my attempts to export video are squished at 4:3.
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Changed H264 for Bly Ray settings to PAL, but "pixel aspect ratio" remains NTSC

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Hello All,
I am working on porting over an existing .mov file importer from Windows to Mac while also upgrading it from CS4 to CS5 (and also rolling in the creation of a hand-written 64-Bit QuickTime file handling library to boot, ouch).
In my current test bed I am having problems with certain 1920 x 1080 .mov files. Some 1920x1080 files that I have get imported properly, some files that I have get imported with the wrong aspect ratio. I have verified that both files should be displayed using square pixels and have also verified that when the selector is sent that calls SDKGetInfo8( ) that I am setting the following for **all** of the above-mentioned test files:
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NameOfTheStretchedClip.mov
Video, 1920 x 1080 (1.7778)
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etc…
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Hi Zac,
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BTW - Clips with other time signatures don't seem to have this problem.
Any ideas?
Thanks,
Josh

Pixel aspect ratio cofusion

HI, I have a heap of digibeta footage digitised using black magic.
It is widescreen 16x9, 720x576 PAL. however on inspection of the properties, the .mov file has pixel aspect ratio is shown as 1.0940.
In after effects, if the footage was interpreted to be widescreen pixels (1.4587) it would then appear in its orgnal propotions on screen.
However, in Premiere when the pixel aspect ratio is interpreted as widescreen two vertical black bars are added to the sides of the footage, which retains its squashed appearence
Obviously I'm missing something, but ive been searching now for 2 hours and cant seem to find any clues?

That is so odd.
My only assumption is that because it is mov that it uses the QuickTime importer vs the native ones.
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You can use compressor to convert everything to square pixels, however there's no need to worry about how it looks in fcp when it's playing but not fully rendered. Try exporting a short section (mark an in and out around the section - and going file: export: quicktime Not quicktime conversion) with current settings. If you render the material, it should look fine when you play it within fcp. Unfortunately, the render settings in the sequence menu are not particularly intuitive, but do a little playing around with them if you've got the time.
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Pixel Aspect Ratio bug in Media Encoder export

Having a weird bug in media encoder exports that I can't seem to figure out. I have a 1080p sequence with a mix of 1080p footage and PAL DV assets. The PAL assets have a pixel aspect ratio of 1.0940. When I format them in my Premiere sequence, I am able to scale them correctly and they look fine. When I export them directly from premiere to broadcast standards it's also fine.
However, when I try to export these sequences in Media Encoder via File->Export->Media-> Queue using the same exact settings (I'm using a preset), Media Encoder formats the PAL assets as if they have square pixels. Thus, half of the footage in my sequences gets horizontally "squished." Note that this does not happen for footage that natively has square pixels, such as my 1080p camera footage.
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Screenshot of Premiere Export (fills screen):
Screenshot of Media Encoder export: (notice the pillar-boxing)

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I searched but found no answer.
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(Ack, for some reason I typed "DVI" and really meant "DV")
Thanks for the response. I don't really care if I preserve the 4:3 aspect ratio. Or does my GL1 not use square pixels and I just never noticed it? It's strange I've never seen this problem until FCE HD.
I have tried exporting a number of ways from FCE, including Export > QuickTime Movie... and Using QuickTime Conversion... For the latter, I typically set it to export as 720x480. I always export as video. The final export contains video clips as well as still images within the video.
I am a bit embarrassed having to ask this question. I've been working with still images in photoshop for over a decade and worked a lot with video during that time as well.
Thanks again.

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My first question
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2- If it is distortion of the actual scene, then it seems like strching the image in post or with a lens shouldn't matter to much?
3-I can right click>Interpret Footage and then select conform to --"D1/DV NTSC Widescreen 16:9 (1.2121)" or "Anamorphic 2:1 (2.0)" or "HD Anamorphic 1080 (1.333)". Which option would be best to get a proper depiction of your scene but also while achieving the "cinematic look"?(if any at all). (to me...it seems like "D1/DV NTSC Widescreen 16:9 (1.2121)" does the best)
-buying anamorphic lens with an adapter that screws onto one of your prime lenses is the best option but it is a pain to have to deal with and is very expensive.
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Thanks

I could be mistaken..I'm not even sure
Premiere says it will "Conform" the "Pixel Aspect Ratio". When I select "D1/DV NTSC Widescreen 16:9 (1.2121)" the pixel aspect ratio is changed from its original 1.0 square pixel to 1.2121. This is a screen shot of what I have been encountering. When this happens you do not lose any of the original footage by covering some of it up via a title and you get the "cinematic look" the wide screen look. So Yes, I am trying to get the 2.35:1 movie frame that you mentioned. That’s what I'm ultimately aiming to get. (the clip as you see it has yet to be changed, have not applied it yet so no black bars.
This is what it looks like with the "D1/DV NTSC Widescreen 16:9 (1.2121)" conversion applied.

Change Pixel Aspect Ratio Once Already Started?

I've been having trouble with my video looking extremely blurry -- I thought it had to do with rendering but it looks the same rendered as it did before rendering. I think I figured out that it has to do with the pixel aspect ratio being too small (or is it frame size, or are those the same thing? It's all very confusing for me!). The final output for this video is YouTube, but it also looks blurry within Premiere (mainly when stretching the Program Monitor so I can see it larger).
I helped on a video a few months ago that looked perfect, everything was really crisp in Premiere (after rendering, that is) and when exported to YT. The pixel aspect ratio was 1920x1080 for this video, and the one I'm working on now is 720x480.
So, can I enhance the pixel aspect ratio of the video I'm working on now? If I'm not able to change the pixel aspect ratio once I've started the project, what would be your advice going forward?
Thanks, and please let me know if you need any more information!

You need to be sure your sequence setting matches
the frame size and aspect ratio of your source media.
To create a sequence that matches your footage, try this:
Once you have created a properly configured sequence,
you can copy (Ctrl+C) then paste (Ctrl+V) your already edited
clips into the newly created sequence.
Also:
Changing a Sequence to Match a Clip
http://www.video2brain.com/en/lessons/changing-a-sequence-to-match-a-clip
Create a sequence
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/premierepro/cs/using/WS3E67AF4C-B2A2-4f04-90B4-F8CCFB74B144.ht ml#WSd79b3ca3b623cac941d41a681247d1f35a4-7fff
What's the best export format or codec?
http://www.video2brain.com/en/lessons/whats-the-best-export-format-or-codec

Urgent MPEG2 question (pixel aspect ratio)

Is a composition that is set as a D1/DV NTSC Pixel Aspect Ratio (0.91) able to be exported as a MPEG2 file?
I have a very large, very complicated project file with a D1/DV NTSC Pixel Aspect Ratio and I'm trying to save it as a MPEG2 file type because it has the best compression for the quality and need the file sizes to be small. However when I go to the MPEG2 Format Options when exporting, it only has Standard 4:3 (0.80), Square Pixel (1.00), Widescreen 16:9 (1.067), and Widescreen 2.21:1 (1.326).
Is there way I can have this project in MPEG2 format and not have letterboxing, stretching or cropping?
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What version of AE are you using?
What are your composition's dimensions? Did you use the NTSC DV composition preset?
First off, if file size is your only concern, then you should encode to h.264, not mpeg2.
Mpeg2 is mainly used for DVD production. H.264 is a much more advanced codec for the sake of making a good-looking & small file.
If playback is computer-based (not DVD), you'll probably want to nest your D1/DV comp inside a square pixel equivalent, and then render that file to a Quicktime (Animation codec @ best/full quality). Then, use Adobe Media Encoder, or your encoding software of choice, to make the compressed (h.264) version.
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Keep in mind, that, if you are going to DVD, a better procedure (to provide maximum quality) would be to render to the Animation codec first, and then compress (2-pass VBR encode) that prerenderd movie to mpeg2.

DV-PAL pixel aspect ratio & Quicktime confusion...

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