DV aspect ratio and Titles

[Jaester]

Alright, what's the best practice for making titles in DV given the .9 aspect ratio?

I'm using premiere pro to edit my dv footage and add titles. Since I capture and export on DV format, my working/project resolution is 720x480 (0.9). I create my titles as 648x480 (1) bitmap images and premiere resizes everything to look perfect.

However, once I export it to a DV movie the titles look like they have been badly resized (jagged and resizing artifacts).

Any suggestion?

Christian

[Backwoods]

720x540 or 720x534 is the proper 0.9 Aspect Ratio for titles with DV or DVD.

[Jaester]

But since I'm resinzing later, should I create the titles in the final dimension and then enlarge it and add to the movie?

[Backwoods]

If you want your titles to look in the movie like how you created them, you have to make them the sizes I stated before. Adobe Premiere will resize them accordingly (if you have the option checked).

As far as them looking jagged, maybe it's the resize filter you are using.

[Jaester]

I'm sorry but I cannot understand how making the titles 720x540 will make them have the correct resolution/aspect ration later.

If I import them into premiere they get converted into 0.9 pixel aspect ratio as for the project setting, that is, from 720x540 (1) to 720x540 (0.9) (actual 720x480 onscreen). This process squeezes them horizontally. At this point the titles are shown different from what I have created.

When I export it from premiere as a DV file and load them in virtualdub, the 0.9 pixel aspect ratio is not used and then my titles look like I created them: 720x540 (1). But when I horizontally resize to go from original DV 0.9 aspect ratio to 1 aspect ratio they get squeezed again (and jagged/blurred in some parts).

[Backwoods]

DV is resized to 640x480 when played back on a TV. You can, if you want, make your titles 640x480, but then they are being upsized when added to your project. That is why 720x540 is correct, one size lower with the correct aspect ratio would be 640x480.

When everything is played back on a TV, it will make sense to you. Do some tests with 720x480 and 720x540 titles, encode to DV, export to your camera/TV. You will see the difference and the 720x540 title will look as you expected.

[Jaester]

Ok. After some testing I found that the 720x540 image does gets resized to the proper aspect ratio but it gets reduced in the final video. But, if I use an image that is 648x480 the aspect ration is also maintained and the final size is correct too.

Now, it seems that the blurring/jagging that I was getting before was because I used a 640x480 image and that's incorrect (8 pixels short on width). I should have known better since I crop that before encoding to XviD.

However, I noticed that premiere seems to always crop 1 pixel on the right of every image I have tested. Is this a aproximation artifact on the premiere encoding/resizing? Is there a way to turn that off/correct?

[Backwoods]

http://www.uploadhouse.com/images/340450327untitled.PNG (http://www.uploadhouse.com/)

Do you have that checked?

[Jaester]

Yes, I found the option and did a couple of tests with it and exporting.

I did a couple of tests and the 720x534 definetely works better once you export the movie as a DV file. That's probably the upsampling of the 648x480 image once exported. However, not that the 720x534 image gets reduced in the exported movie. What's displayed on the screen is smaller than whatever you prepared, but the quality is probably as good as it gets.

I think that the only way around this is to change the pixel aspect ratio of the movie and then add your titles or any stills.

But I'm good with the 720x534 images for now!

Thanks for the patience and good info!

[Backwoods]

No problem. Glad you have it all worked out.