PAL still Menus

[t610425]

Dear all,

I would appreciate your help with the still menus aspect ratios.

Now I’ve read in the forums that for NTSC, one uses a 720x540 (1.33:1 square pixels) image and then resizes that to 720x480, in order to get a correct aspect in DVD.
What image size should be used for PAL to get the correct aspect and WHY?

Tnx in advance

Takis

[Dimmer]

PAL menu should be made as 768x576 and then resized to 720x576. Photoshop has a built-in PAL template when you create a new file.

The reason for this is that computer monitor pixels are square, and TV pixels are rectangular. If you wish to test that, made a menu with a large circle in the middle at 768x576 resized to 720x576 and another one straight at 720x576. After authoring a DVD, you'll see that the circle won't be round on the second menu.

[t610425]

@dimmer: tnx a lot, would you be so kind to explain also the Wide and Letterboxed formats also?

All the best

Takis

[Dimmer]

16:9 (widescreen) picture is created using 1024x576 resolution (PAL) and then resized to 720x576. For NTSC, it's 864x480 resized to 720x480.

Letterboxed picture: black bars are added at the top and bottom of 4:3 screen in order to fit the whole picture.

Pan and Scan picture: sides get cut off so the picture fills up entire 4:3 screen. Out of the original 720 pixels, only 540 in the middle of the picture are visible (at least for NTSC, most likely same for PAL).

Both letterboxed and pan&scan pictures look the same on 16:9 monitor.