HD Preset sees cropping or margins on HDready TVs.

Question

Premiere CS3
I am desperate to resolve this apparent simple task.  I need to know, why does Premiers presets not fit HDready TV's ?
See the results from three different TV’s further below.
Just what should I make the width and height of a project (and what pixel aspect ratio ?) to have videos played on PAL dvd players fit a HD ready screen ?  I need to put stills into the video. What size and pixel aspect ratio should they be made ?
The advice I followed sees margins and cropping. What other settings should I be choosing in Photoshop and then in Premiere and in TMPGenc ?
I am using Pshop CS2 WinXP, I have an LCD monitor. Client has LCD HDready TV PAL. (Native res 1533 x 768px.)  the standard dvd video is to also play on friends LCD TVs. (they don’t have blueray players), all are dvd players with scart. People are buying LCD but keeping existing dvd players and thus using scart, picture quality is less than my Wega !
Why don’t the suggested presets from another thread create videos that fit HDready screens ?
I have need of making stills or video fit the screen of HD Ready TV’s (dont we all ?? !!!) and I am following advice that said use either 720x576 or 1280 x 720 or 1920x 1080 and ignore the screens default resolution. The 1920x1080 is the size of full HD TV’s and the 720x576 is not 16:9 ratio so probably intended for non HD Ready TV’s though I tried it anyway, picture quality on HDready was poor and it still saw cropping so it must be the 1280x720 then for the HDready.
To test this out, I created a chart of 1280 x 720pixels Square pixels in photoshop, saving as tiff.
It has a square grid of black lines on a white background (20 squares wide - each is thus 64pixels) and circles at left middle and right. At the sides are 5 pixel increment rulers heading into the chart with 0 at picture edge.
We want our stills or video to fit the HD Ready screen without distortion.
Thus the goal is to get the test image to fit the screen and see all edges as 0.
I went New Project in Premiere and chose the suggested 1280 x 720 size 25fps which exists as a preset.
Imported the tiff into the timeline. Made a video and authored it in TMPGencAuthoringWorks. It saw it as 720x576 and no options existed to make it otherwise. I chose Progressive.
Playing it on DVD players connected to LCD TVs we get anything but a fit to screen ! Why ?
Note they all are using scart, both shops and private TV’s. Would a HDMI enabled dvd player connected via hdmi see a fit with 0 at all four screen edges and perfect grid and circles, and no ghosting on the verticals, and the 1pixel zebra chart visible ?
I also noticed that text created in premiere was of better quality than Photoshops text in the tiffs, which on the Panasonic had jpg type artefacts around it, but not on the Wega CRT. Why ?
Panasonic HD Ready 32inch  scart DVD to TV.
Auto     0 on all four sides so picture all in but with Black margins 3inch sides and 2 inch top/bottom.
16:9     0 on all four sides so picture all in but with Black margins 3inch sides and 2 inch top/bottom.
Zoom 1    0 and 0 left and right,  25 top and 20 bott, 4 inch wide black margins at sides.
Zoom 2    0 and 0 left and right, 25 top and 20 bottom so some cropping, circles a little stretched north/south
Zoom 3   0 and 0 left and right, 100 top and 100 bottom so 200 pixels lost in top/bott crop, circles heavily stretched north/south
14:9   0 all four sides with 5inch black side margins and 1inch black top/bott margins, circle heavily stretched north/south
4:3 though not an obvious choice for filling a 16:9 screen, gave 0 all round and 8inch black left/right and 2inch black top/bott.
Best then was Zoom 2 but 40 pixels lost north/south.
All vertical lines had ghosted lines either side, horiz lines ok.
LG (LH2000) 42inch LCD  scart dvd to TV.
16:9   0 all four sides with black margins. Circles slightly stretched north/south
Full Wide   0 all fours sides with 3.5inch margins left/right and black margins top/bott.
Zoom   0 at left, right and bott but 20 at top. Black margins at left, right and bott but not at top. Most odd ! Circle stretched north/south
Original   0 all four sides and black margins 3.5 inch sides and 1.5 inch top/bott with Circles slightly stretched north/south.
Again All vertical lines had ghosted lines either side, horiz lines ok.
Samsung 32inch LCD scart dvd to TV.
Margins measured also using the pixel ruler of the chart, though its obvious its been compressed, else e.g. the 1024px margins of 4:3 take up almost all the screen width which they don’t in fact.
16:9   0 all four sides with black margins 202px wide at sides and 197px tall at top/bott. Circles distorted east/west.
Zoom   0 all four sides with black margins 202px wide sides and 90px tall top/bott. Circles distorted north/south
4:3   0 all four sides and black margins 512 pixels wide sides (6.25inches) and 240 pixels tall top/bott (3.25inch)
Autowide    0 all four sides with black margins 202px wide sides and 250px tall (3.25inch) top/bott. Circles distorted east/west.
Again All vertical lines had ghosted lines either side, horiz lines ok.
A second chart featured zebra crossings (alternate black/white lines) vert and horiz orientated of sizes 1,2 3 and 4 pixel line weights. All TVs were able to show the 3 pixel sets, in that the 1 and 2 were blurred and one could see the 3 was alternate black/white, not pin sharp though but somewhat woolly !
Playing the 720x576 Sq Pixel Interlaced chart :-
Sony Wega digital CRT 42inch: (scart dvd to TV):-
Smart   15left, 5 right, 54 top and 58 bottom with circles slight stretch middle east/west and more stretched for the outer ones. No Margins
14:9   20 left  0 right, 60 top and bottom. Black margins at sides of 72px width left and 55px width right. Circles ok.
Zoom   20 left, 14 right, 80 top and 85 bottom, No margins. circle ok middle and some stretch east/west for outer two.
Wide   20 left, 13 right,  15 top and 24 bottom No Margins with all three circles stretched east/west.
4:3    20 left, 0 right, 20 top and 25 bottom. Black margins at sides 128px width. Circles and grid almost perfect. Crazy though to be losing one side of image.
No ghosting of vert lines.
Panasonic LCD 32inch (same as in earlier test above..clients TV)
Auto 0 sides and 30top, 15 bottom, circle distorted east/west. No black margins
16:9   0 sides and 20 top, 15 bottom, circle distorted east/west. No black margins
Zoom 1   0 sides 90 top, 85 bott no black margins, Circle OK
Zoom 2   90 sides and 90 top, 85 bottom. Circle distorted east/west. No black margins
Zoom 3   90 sides and 16 top and bottom. Circle slight distort north/south, quality poor.
14:9   0 sides and 60 top, 55 bottom. Circle ok. Black margins sides (50pixel wide)
4:3   0 sides and 20 top, 15 bott. Circle ok. Black margins sides 120px width (3inch)
16:9 probably best but with cropping top and bott and distorted circles east/west so nothing here of use.
Vert lines ghosted either side
Nothing of any use.
Envirographics

Answer 1

Hi, Thanks for the advice.
How do you wish to show your project on an HDTV?.
Client has dvd player (not bluray capable) via scart and hopefully soon a hdmi lead.
Currently  tried 1280 x 720 square pixel images created in photoshop (hence sq pixels) to suit the input preset of PAL 1280 x 720  25fps Square Pixel and going File>Export>Adobe Media Encoder and choosing MPEG2-DVD and  PAL Progressive Widescreen High Quality which yields 720 x 576. This seemed suitable for a non HD playing device. It looked good on screen in TMPGencAuthoringWorks. Am I right in saying people buying LCD HDready TV's need to get a new dvd player capable of HD so as to make the most of the image quality of their TV ? Most seem to buy LCD and plumb them into their existing dvd players !
As the dvd player is not capable of bluray output, choosing this seemed logical BUT trying out all screen aspect settings on the Panasonic LCD HDready TV sees the following cropping of our 1280x720 test image with grid and circles, the cropping we got is simply unacceptable. (192 left /right means 192 on each side totalling 384)
On a plus note, quality improved, now seeing horiz black/white lines 1 pixel line weight, vert ones were a little woolly though. 2px test lines were ok. Thats an improvement over only 3 beijg best. Finding the Adobe Media Encoder has seen some benefit !
Auto  55 left /right ( that’s 8.6% lossage) and 25 top and 20 bott (6.25% lossage), Circles OK
16:9  ditto
Zoom 1  55 left /right (8.6%) and 105 top/bott (29% lossage) Circles stretched vert
Zoom 2    192 left /right (30%) and 100 top/bott (27%) Circles ok
Zoom 3   192 left/right (30%) and 168 top/bott (47%) ..a disaster !
14:9   55 left/right with black margins each 96px ,  75top and 65 bott (19%) Circles stretched vert.
4:3   55 left/right with black margins each 192, 25top and 20 bott (6.25%) Circles stretched vert.
Auto and 16:9 best but we ned to see 0 on all four sides else we are losing people out of the picture ! ...or should we add black margins to it ! ?
Any answers to the following gratefully received.
What should I choose for PAL dvd video to HDreadyTV. ?
1) Pixel width and height of still (tiff) ?
2) Pixel aspect ratio of still (tiff) ?
3) Preset for input source or custom setting and what to choose ?
4) Adobe Media Encoder output settings:-
     a) MPEG2 or MPEG2-DVD
     b)  PAL option ..which one to pick with regards pixel width/height, fps, interlacing or progressive, quality effect on pixels and our desired goal ?
     c) or custom output and what ?
Envirographics.