Altered PAL size

Darramouss · Post by **Darramouss** » Thu Jun 18, 2009 10:43 am

Hey there.

Have any PAL users noticed that the default PAL setting is 20 pixels wider than the old settings, 788 instead of 768?

Manu · Post by **Manu** » Thu Jun 18, 2009 10:52 am

Yup, looks like the default settings for PAL are wrong in version 6. PAL should be 768x576 and widescreen should be 1024x576. Presets also don't seem to change he framerate.

Darramouss · Post by **Darramouss** » Thu Jun 18, 2009 11:32 am

Ah, yes, I didn't even think to check widescreen.

Hello Mike!! Could you please schedule a change to the PAL framesizes when there's an update? It would help us PAL people very muchly. Ta.

(I hope Mike reads this, Manu!!)

Manu · Post by **Manu** » Thu Jun 18, 2009 11:50 am

Failing that, those presets must be kept somewhere. I wonder if it's in a human-readable format in some preferences file that can be changed. I can't seem to find it anywhere.

And it would be better if presets set the frame rate too.

heyvern · Post by **heyvern** » Thu Jun 18, 2009 1:51 pm

I thought PAL was "non square" pixels?

PAL (for Europe):

Standard DV (4:3) 788 x 576
DV Widescreen (16:9) 1050 x 576

NTSC (for the USA):

Standard DV (4:3) 720 x 528
DV Widescreen (16:9) 874 x 480

-vern

Darramouss · Post by **Darramouss** » Thu Jun 18, 2009 2:06 pm

I've always known the width to be 1.33333 times the height in pixels.

Manu · Post by **Manu** » Thu Jun 18, 2009 2:13 pm

heyvern wrote:I thought PAL was "non square" pixels?

PAL is always 720x576 non-square pixels (=anamorphic).

But since AS can't render non-square pixels, you render it out as 768x576 (square pixels) and convert it to 720x576 (non-square pixels) in After Effects or so.

Same for widescreen, you render it out from AS as 1024x576 (square pixels) and reduce it to 720x576 (non-square pixels) in After Effects.

By the way, 576 divided by 3 and multiplied with 4 gives you 768. In other words, 768x576 gives you a perfect 4:3 ratio. Unlike 788x576, no idea where that came from.

Same goes for the widescreen: 576 divided by 9 and multiplied by 16 gives you 1024. Which means that 1024x576 gives you a perfect 16:9 ratio.

heyvern · Post by **heyvern** » Thu Jun 18, 2009 2:20 pm

I don't know what this means but I found this on an informational site regarding pixel dimensions of video formats. It would seem to confirm the sizes for PAL used in AS 6. It seems to me the "full width square pixels" for PAL is the important part. Either way some conversion is going to have to be done from AS generated renders in post.

In summary, some obvious image sizes in pixels to use to generate square pixel images for digital video are as follows:

NTSC D1 (720 x 486) normal
4:3 square pixels 712 x 534
Full width square pixels 720 x 534

NTSC D1 (720 x 486) widescreen
16:9 square pixels 864 x 486
Full width square pixels 874 x 486

NTSC DV (720 x 480) normal
4:3 square pixels 704 x 528
Full width square pixels 720 x 528

NTSC DV (720 x 480) widescreen
16:9 square pixels 854 x 480
Full width square pixels 874 x 480

PAL (720 x 576) normal
4:3 square pixels 768 x 576
Full width square pixels 788 x 576

PAL (720 x 576) widescreen
16:9 square pixels 1024 x 576
Full width square pixels 1050 x 576

Manu · Post by **Manu** » Thu Jun 18, 2009 2:49 pm

Right, seems that recently the standards have changed. For the last 10 years everybody has used 768x576 and 1024x576.

But some bright spark somewhere has decided it has to be 788x576 and 1050x576 from now on. I didn't even know about this and I work in this industry. I think a lot of people will probably not know about this either.

After Effects has changed their presets in CS4 and it seems to cause quite a few confused users out there.

Post by **Lost Marble** » Thu Jun 18, 2009 6:32 pm

I believe Anime Studio 6 has the right numbers now for both PAL and NTSC. I'm confident in saying this because in the interim between Moho and Smith Micro, I worked for Adobe on the video feature (among other things) in Photoshop.

For CS4, both Photoshop and all the Adobe video products had to change their resolution presets. It was a long discussion and involved folks from the BBC and other places. The result was that the presets were changed for CS4. The dimensions for PAL did not actually change, but prior versions of Adobe products used the wrong numbers. (Not very wrong, but slightly wrong.)

Anyway, Anime Studio 6 matches the presets in the Adobe CS4 suite.

-Mike

Post by **Víctor Paredes** » Sat Jun 27, 2009 9:12 am

Lost Marble wrote:I believe Anime Studio 6 has the right numbers now for both PAL and NTSC. I'm confident in saying this because in the interim between Moho and Smith Micro, I worked for Adobe on the video feature (among other things) in Photoshop.

Wow, at office they love new video features of Photoshop. They will be amazed when I say them you were working on that (they just can't believe Moho be a one single man software). I don't know if this is ok, but can you say with what other things did you work with Photoshop?