NTSC Widescreen PAR

I have some footage from my MiniDV camcorder that was shot in it's widescreen mode, 1.2121 pixel aspect ratio. When I load up the video in AE7, I interpret the footage, the comp settings are correct, and the output settings are too. I can fix the pixel distortion by enabling "Toggle Pixel Aspect Ratio Correction" so no problem there...my problem comes from rendering.

No matter what I do, the video always turns out to be square pixels at, 1.0000. So I get the annoying black bars on the sides of the video, and it ruins the widescreen effect. I can fix it by doing "NTSC D1 Widescreen Square Pixel" preset, which fits perfectly on the sides, then correct for the height, but that's not the size it was originally. Since, now it's 864x486 1.0000, and not the 720x480 1.2121 that it was.

Am I doing anything wrong, or does AE convert DV to square pixels automatically?

Thanks,
Kessno

 

Where are you viewing this? If its on a computer screen, It won't play normal. Monitors have square pixels. If your final output is to be viewed on monitors, you'll have to put it in a comp with square pixels. If you want it for DVD or something on TV, you'll do the 720x480 or 720x486.

 

Well, why does the widescreen footage off the camera look fine, with the bars at the top/bottom? (I'm using a widescreen monitor) Plus, AE still doesn't let me change it from square pixels, even though I set it to 1.2 in the output.

 

Widescreen DV footage, like you said, is 720x480 with a PAR of 1.2. If you view this footage on your camera's LCD, it will be stretched horizontally to bring it into the proper shape. If you view this in most capture/edit programs, it will do the same thing. This is because both of these have automatic PAR-correction. When you have an mov file, the PAR-correction isn't there. You're seeing it for what it actually is. 720 square pixels long and 480 square pixels high. Once you take that "squished" movie file and dump it into a DVD program, it will all turn out normal.

If this doesn't help, give us some more info about what programs you're using, details of every step and where you get confused. Don't take anything for granted.

 

Alright, I'll do my best to explain every detail that I do when editing. For starters, I use After Effects 7 and Sony Vegas 8 Plat. I import the widescreen footage off my camera with Sony Vegas, which I believe has Auto PAR-correction. From there I import my footage into AE7, color correct, add special effects, etc. Then I render the video, and import into Vegas one last time for sound, then I make the final render.

What I don't understand is, why does the footage I capture with Vegas, playback fine, if it should technically look squished on a monitor? Also, why does AE only render it to 1.0000 square, not 1.2 as I told it too. (Vegas shows it as 1.0000 when I import it for sound) As I would like to be able to watch it on my computer, as well as burn it to a DVD, so I'd like to be able to edit with both in mind.

---On a side note, if I'm just editing a clip down, and render it with Vegas as NTSC Widescreen PAR 1.2, it looks perfect as the original footage did, I only have this problem when editing in AE7 and trying to bring it back into Vegas---

 

If it's DV compressed, some video players (Windows Media Player, on a PC, for example) can compensate for the pixel aspect ratio. In any other codec or format, though, it shows as stretched.

When you render your video, you might want to try rendering it in square pixels and stretched from your current composition size - for instance, something that is 720x480 at 1.2 aspect ratio should render to 864x480 stretched to square pixels.

Edit: Just saw your last post, so it sorta invalidates some of what I was saying, since you're not rendering the final product. Maybe after rendering however you are, there's some sort of setting in Vegas to force a certain pixel aspect ratio correction... I know that I can in AE, say if it thinks that the video is 0.9 but it's actually 1.2 (I had to do that manually every time when I had AE 5.5).

 

So, you're saying that AE always renders to square pixels normally, and I should use 864x480? It looks like Vegas captures it a DV Compressed AVI, and then from AE I render it as an uncompressed AVI. And try previewing it in Windows Media Player, and it looks squished.

 

Check the "Compostion Settings" (e.g. right click the comp-tab's header in the timeline panel) for the comp that you're rendering from AE, that's where you should have the PAR set to 1.2. I'm not clear what format/codec you're rendering to, but the lossless formats should all retain that PAR setting.

In AE you can also control the PAR of your input footage by checking its "Interpret Footage" settings (e.g. right click the item in the project panel). That's where you can force your footage to have settings different from what the raw file might want to be.

 

What I'm trying to say is that AE will render the number of pixels you tell it to, and that most other pieces of software won't be able to interpret it correctly, so in short, yes, even if you tell it to render at a 1.2 aspect ratio, most pieces of software won't be able to interpret the aspect ratio and will instead show it squished. This is because you're rendering to uncompressed AVI, which doesn't have an easy way for pixel aspect ratio to be compensated for. DV-AVI does have the ability to be innately 1.2 or 0.9, but it's not good for intermediate steps (compression, ick), so you'll have to set its PAR when you bring it back into Vegas.

I don't know about Vegas, but as drewjmore said, looks for something like "Interpret Footage" when you're re-importing your footage from AE into Vegas.

 

Alright, sorry for the misunderstanding. I found and corrected the PAR in Vegas from 1.0000 to 1.2, but still no luck when rendering it. Like you said, I'll probably end up saving as 864x480 in AE, so it'll come out properly in the end. Will that create a problem putting it onto a DVD?

Lastly, this PAR issue, is it mainly with MiniDV and HDV tapes? As in the future I'd like to upgrade my equipment, and hopefully not have to deal with the issue...

 

To put it simply, this issue is involved in many different formats, so it'd be best to learn about it now and get used to it. No equipment or application upgrade will rid you of it. There are tons of resources out there, but instead of pointing you to them, I'll indulge my love of all things technical videography and give you the "history" lesson.

Back in the day, all things were shot with a very square format. This is what most people refer to as standard NTSC. Then came widescreen. So you had to fit two different aspect ratios (4:3 and 16:9) onto the same screen. Once DV (the standard digital video format, where miniDV gets its name) hit the scene, they had to standardize the format. 720x480 was born. You see, all DV footage (miniDV, DVCAM, DVC Pro, etc) and both aspect ratios (4:3 and 16:9) use the same pixel count of 720x480. It's the shape of the pixels that count. This is the pixel aspect ratio, or PAR, that you've come to know and love.

If I shoot a scene using NTSC DV, I'm using 720x480 with a PAR of 0.9 to achieve the look of 640x480, or 4:3. This makes the pixels taller than they are wide. It won't look like a 720x480 (or 3:2 ratio) image on a TV, because the player device (either the broadcast station or the DVD/VCR player) recognizes its PAR of 0.9. Is that clear?

Now, if I decide to activate the "widescreen mode" on my camcorder, I'm still shooting a 720x480 image, but with a PAR of 1.2. This effectively stretches the pixels to be wider than they are tall. Hence, when you view a NTSC Widescreen or DV Anamorphic movie file on a computer screen, it looks squished because the square pixels are meant to be stretched out to the PAR of 1.2 in order to achieve the proper image.

Like others have said, if you final product is going to be viewed on a computer monitor or over the web, square pixels need to be your output product. Thus, a widescreen image needs to have 864x486 pixels and a standard 4:3 image needs to have 640x486 pixels. But if you're final output is going to be DVD, then you can't use square pixels. You need either a 720x480 image with a PAR of 1.2 for widescreen or a 720x480 image with a PAR of 0.9 for 4:3.

I've satisfied the nerd in me. Does that help?

*puts his away carefully, knowing he'll use it again soon.*

 

Which gives history, but no real answers for his questions...

I know it's with DV and HDV, I don't know about other formats. Ryan_W and DorkmanScott worked with P2 for RvD2, I don't know if that had any wonky pixel ratio things.

 

Fixed.

Also, as long as one properly knows how ratios work (simple multplication and division involving fractions folks, incredibly easy to do) and can convert pixel sizes accordingly, knows that the final output for video using the standard NTSC DVD format should be at 720x480 (even though 3 other resolutions are supported for NTSC DVD, just not widely used) and that when the video is converted to 720x480, that it will look stretched either vertically or horizontally (depending on whether it's anamorphic widescreen or not) when played from a computer using a computer monitor (unless already in the MPEG-2 format using the proper players) then you can actually use square pixels during the entire editing process... except when the editor reads the codec/wrapper being used and forces it to a pixel size other than square (which I personally don't like my editors to do *grumble*).

Technically he can use square pixels even for the final output... well, depending on the compressing program being used of course. When converting a 720x480 uncompressed AVI to an MPEG-2 file, everything that reads the MPEG-2 codec for proper playback will use a 0.9 or 1.2 pixel size by default, depending on the file's header information on whether it's 4:3 or 16:9.

As you can probably tell, I always think of every video file/DVD/Blu-Ray in square pixels. I personally find it easier to work with that way.

 

Same here. Been editing at 864x480 for a while now, only convert to a wonky pixel aspect ratio for DVD outputs.

 

Last word from me (vacation later this morning) upload a short clip (just a few frames would work fine). I'm not convinced that it's impossible to get what you want right from AE.

 

It's not the coming from AE that's the problem, it's the going to Vegas (Vegas won't read the container right and automatically correct for the pixel aspect ratio). Am I right int hat assessment, Kessno?

 

Yes, you are correct.

I appreciate all the help and response, it's not a big deal for DVD burning at this time I guess, most important thing for me is just computer viewing. So I think I'll stick with 864x486 editing for now with it.

Thanks
-Kessno

 

I think I might have some more insight into your issue. I just finished stabilizing some footage in AE, rendered it out and dropped it back into FCP6. I've done this so many times that I kinda forgot about what actually happens. When I drop the new clip into my timeline, it's squished. What I normally do is click on the clip's motion tab and under Distort I can reset the Aspect Ratio from 33.33 to 0. This stretches it back out to where it should be. That way you're not messing with your original pixels by changing 720 stretched pixels into 864 square pixels (there's no even division there.

Can someone tell me if there's a similar feature in Vegas?