Pixel Aspect Ratio Conversion for PAL Video - Petition to Apple

[Steve56]

There is a new Online Petition to Apple for using the right Pixel Aspect Ratio Conversion in their Video Applications for digital/analogue PAL Video.

Maybe there should be a similar petition set up for Adobe and other Video Software Companies as well.

The petition can be read and signed here:

http://www.petitiononline.com/palvideo/petition.html

If you want to know more about all the facts of correct Pixel Aspect Ratio Conversion I recommend to read these pages:

http://www.uwasa.fi/%7ef76998/video/conversion/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/commissioning/branding/picturesize.shtml

[Wilbert]

Everyone has to know for himself whether he supports this or not.

I probably open a can of worms by saying this, but the real question is, are dvd's burned accordingly to the ITU standard?

In the Gordian Knot forum, most people will probably answer this question affirmative. But in fact, I'm not aware of any evidence which supports this. However there is evidence which supports the other side (although it's not enough to conclude anything):

In some cases the real aspect ratio is stated on the back of a dvd. In general this is the case of 2.35:1 and I think also of 1.86:1 dvd's. If you calculate it, you will see that you get those aspect ratio's if you assume that these dvd's are _not_ ITU compliant (i.e. the 720x576 / 720x480 forms exactly the 16:9 / 4:3 picture).

That's why I won't sign this petition.

[Steve56]

I think everyone doing digital video in a professional way should do it the correct way, eventually that's what standards should be there for! But it looks like all do it wrong, and then this is the standard :-(

Here are some more informations including a test chart, that shows what's wrong about the common 768x576 to 720x576 PAL Video conversion:

http://www.vistavision.de/par_pal_video.html

If you make a test with any dv camcorder you will see that it also uses the right pixel aspect ratio conversion, not the wrong one which is implemented in almost any software.