Resize confusion and NTSC

[jdfrey1]

I was wondering if someone can help answer my question as I'm a bit confused about resizing to view on a television. I did read the Resize question in the FAQ and my first question is what if my source is 720x480. What should I resize to for viewing on the TV.

Now, here is my confusion that hopefully someone can answer. I'll explain what I am doing. I have created a photo montage using Slide Show Movie Maker (which by the way is an excellent free program!). From SSMM I can resize to whatever size I want but I have been using 720x480. It requires me to use a compressable codec so I have been using Divx and just turning the bitrate up all the way to 10kps. Then I import the file into Premiere and add and audio track and title screen.

After I'm happy with my editing I export using the Panasonic DV codec to a 720x480 DV. The first thing I do is export with Scenalyzer to DV tape on my Sony Camcorder to review and preserve the recording. Now, when I watch this on my TV through my camcorder the edges are cut off the screen on both sides and the top and bottom. I'm assuming that the resize will fix this problem.

Now, this question may be in the wrong forum but I usually use CCE to encode the DV file to a DVD Mpeg-2 720x480. I am eventually planning on making a DVD. Do I want to keep this at 720x480 or do the resize? For preserving the tape originally should I even care about the resizing? My reason for preserving on tape is if I ever find a better way to encode I can re-grab the files from tape and encode the right way. If I keep it as 720x480 then I haven't lost anything right?

I realize there are a lot of questions here and if you can help with any of them I would appreciate it.

Thanks,
Jeff

[bb]

Originally posted by jdfrey1
Now, here is my confusion that hopefully someone can answer. I'll explain what I am doing. I have created a photo montage using Slide Show Movie Maker (which by the way is an excellent free program!). From SSMM I can resize to whatever size I want but I have been using 720x480. It requires me to use a compressable codec so I have been using Divx and just turning the bitrate up all the way to 10kps. Then I import the file into Premiere and add and audio track and title screen.
If you need to edit afterwards you better use a DV or an MJPEG codec (or even the lossless Huffyuv).

After I'm happy with my editing I export using the Panasonic DV codec to a 720x480 DV. The first thing I do is export with Scenalyzer to DV tape on my Sony Camcorder to review and preserve the recording. Now, when I watch this on my TV through my camcorder the edges are cut off the screen on both sides and the top and bottom. I'm assuming that the resize will fix this problem.
No, the edges being cut off is called "TV overscan". That's normal, and it depends on the TV set used how much gets cut off. You cannot solve this through resizing. Instead you could add black bars - e.g. some SVCD people prefer to do this. Usually they add eight pixels to the left and right, and you may want to add to top and bottom as well. You will see the black borders when playing back on a PC monitor, though.

Now, this question may be in the wrong forum but I usually use CCE to encode the DV file to a DVD Mpeg-2 720x480. I am eventually planning on making a DVD. Do I want to keep this at 720x480 or do the resize? For preserving the tape originally should I even care about the resizing? My reason for preserving on tape is if I ever find a better way to encode I can re-grab the files from tape and encode the right way. If I keep it as 720x480 then I haven't lost anything right?
Right. For DVD you must not resize. 720x480 is a valid DVD resolution, stick with that.

bb

[jdfrey1]

Originally posted by bb
If you need to edit afterwards you better use a DV or an MJPEG codec (or even the lossless Huffyuv).


I will try Huffyuv and see how it looks. I originally did try a DV codec but for some reason SSMM doesn't like it. I have been really happy with the quality of the Divx files though. There isn't a lot of motion though since they are only pictures. Some of the transitions are complicated but I don't see any problems.

Originally posted by bb
No, the edges being cut off is called "TV overscan". That's normal, and it depends on the TV set used how much gets cut off. You cannot solve this through resizing. Instead you could add black bars - e.g. some SVCD people prefer to do this. Usually they add eight pixels to the left and right, and you may want to add to top and bottom as well. You will see the black borders when playing back on a PC monitor, though.

Right. For DVD you must not resize. 720x480 is a valid DVD resolution, stick with that.
bb [/B]

Will I have the same problem with the overscan when I put the file on a DVD and play it through the TV? Is the best way to add the black bars with Avisynth? I'm thinking I would do a Bilinearresize to 704x464 and then an AddBorders. What I'm thinking I would do is after I export the 720x480 DV from Premiere I would do a resize to say 704x464 then add the 8 pixels on all sides to make it 720x480? Then I could encode with CCE to get my DVD MPEG. I would preserve the DV in its original 720x480 format though so there isn't that extra step.

Thanks for the help!

[bb]

Originally posted by jdfrey1
Will I have the same problem with the overscan when I put the file on a DVD and play it through the TV? Is the best way to add the black bars with Avisynth? I'm thinking I would do a Bilinearresize to 704x464 and then an AddBorders. What I'm thinking I would do is after I export the 720x480 DV from Premiere I would do a resize to say 704x464 then add the 8 pixels on all sides to make it 720x480? Then I could encode with CCE to get my DVD MPEG. I would preserve the DV in its original 720x480 format though so there isn't that extra step.
Yes, the overscan problem exists for standalone players, too. If I wanted to add borders, I would do it through AviSynth, yes. But I don't like that approach, I prefer to live with clipped edges.

bb

[ulfschack]

Actually, why don't you import your stills directly into Premiere, which I'm pretty sure supports this. Also if you dont need to edit terribly much go directly from avisynth to the encoder like this:

LoadPlugin("c:\ImageSequence.dll")
first_frame=0000
last_frame=0062
ImageSequence("S:\images2\r%.4d.bmp",first_frame,last_frame,1)
bicubicresize(704,464).addborders(8,8,8,8)
changeFPS(150)
AssumeFPS(25)


The assume/change trickery is to create an 25 fps stream that plays in synch with real time with snaps taken every six seconds (150=6*25). With your (NTSC) resolution you can't use 25, but I think 23.97, 29.976 or 30 is allowed (double check this ... I'm PAL, see)

If you have to use Premiere then consider using a video server so that you can do IPC source directly into an avisynth script without intermediate DV encoding (not entirely lossless)

BTW. I use 32 pixels on the sides and 24 on top/bottom for my borders and they hardly show on any TVs: And yes the overscan is present just as much should you be playing your video from a DVD-R.

cheers

cheers

[jdfrey1]

ulfschack:

Thanks for the info. I'm not going to use it this time but this is very good information for the future. I did not realize that avisynth had this capability.

I really like SSMM because there are numerous random transitions that can be added that are very nice. I realize that I can add transitions in Premiere too but SSMM simplifies it a lot.

[ulfschack]

I got ya. It's just that it seemed unnecessary to do the extra compressions ,especially the first divX one, but I guess for stills there's not much difference plus that you said SSMM couldn't use DV (?).

Oh, and avisynth does not have this capability by itself. You have to get the plugin ImageSequence.dll that I refered to.

cheers