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sisabetFirst things first: I am not computer savvy. I am not even all that program savvy when we talk about programs and such that I have used for years. Trust me - if there is a button to handle a task, I know the 12 step work-around and am totally ignorant of the fact that the button even exists.
Hence, Disclaimer: Any technical terms I get correct is due to luck. Any technical terms that I get incorrect... well do me a favor - assume *everything* is incorrect until proven true.
So, if you are like me you have a certain fondness for a little hobby I call, "Watchin' Stuff." If you are like me, you also give little thought to whether or not there are black bars on top of and below the stuff you watch. You might notice it more when you watch a movie or when you are at a party and want to appear all snooty and smart about movies (filmedjucated, if you will) and say things like it is a travesty to watch "Die Hard" in anything but the widescreen version as the creator intended. Then you flick your nose in the air and brush off some imaginary dust from your smoking jacket and a woman in a severe black bob and bright red lipstick hands you a martini and everyone laughs and it sounds like glass breaking. Outside of this occurrance, the subject probably isn't coming up all that much.
Unless you decide to vid. If you decide to vid then someone at some point will say two words to you and those words should strike fear and dispair into your heart. Those words should chill you to the bone and cause a strong woman to weep. Those words will keep you up at night and they will break you.
The words that I write of here, my friends, those words are Aspect Ratio.
Webster's defines aspect ratio as the specific point of any frame image where a vidder will, happily and with a song in her heart, rather fall upon a sword (and failing that, the sharp edge of a copier will do nicely) than fool with this fucking thing one second longer.
While I tend to agree with this definition, I think Webster's is being overly dramatic (as is his wont). Aspect Ratio is the word we use to describe what is going on here:
note: for dramatic purposes, please pretend the role of Vidder A and Vidder B are being played by puppets
Vidder A: Hey Vidder B, what's up.
Vidder B: Oh, not much vidder A. I'm working on my vid and it just looks funky.
Vidder A: How so B?
Vidder B: Well A, I am glad you asked. See that dude right there?
[Vidder B dramatically points to character in vid, wire controlling Vidder B's arm snaps and the studio audience ignores as they understand intent and all. Wow. I really love this studio audience. You guys are great]
Vidder A: The tall skinny fella?
Vidder B: Yeah.
Vidder A: He's kinda hairy but I don't see the problem.
Vidder B: Well, see that tall skinny fella is Gimli.*
AND SCENE!
*See, he is a DWARF!!! But he looks tall and skinny cause the aspect ratio is off! Geddit? See? No? Do not make me bring out more puppets.
Let us discuss for a moment. Once upon a time, there were movies and there was television. At the movie theater, the rectangle that made up the screen was much longer than it was tall.
The rectangle that made up your television set was not nearly shaped like a movie screen. Way back then, televisions all came in different sizes, but one thing was always consistant and that was the ratio of the height versus the width of the screen on all sets was the same (ratio of course is from the Latin word rat which means "small vermin who will fuck up your pre-algebra grade point average because you will never ever never understand probability, you brain damaged git").
Every show that you watched on your television filled the entire screen (remember this - "filled the entire screen" as it will figure in very prominently when we explain what full screen means). The reason, of course, is because it was against the law to not fill an entire screen of television under the Conservation and Regulation of Broadcast Signal Screen Space Act of 1952.
This was mainly because at that time, unfilled areas on a television screen would emit invisible spectrum light waves that were widely believed to cause people to become Communists. However, in 1971 a young scientist named Emmet Brown was successful in creating the first safely letterboxed image.
What did this technology do? Well - it enabled a television screen to have a black bar put across the very top and across the very bottom. This caused the viewable area of the television to actually shrink - but only if you were thinking in, you know, real numbers. If you abandoned the shackles of reality, you would realize that these bars actually increased the viewable area as now the rectangle that made up the screen was much wider than it was taller. Like a MOVIE THEATER only teeeny tiny.
Now as you all know, Congress in 1989, in a misguided attempt at deregulating the industry passed the Letterbox Act of 1992 which required all genre television shows to be broadcast for at least one season in full screen resolution and then to make a switch to this new widescreen technology after one season thru the series run because that just makes tons of sense.
What does this mean to you - a vidder? Well it means that if you are vidding Farscape then you have season one thru season 3 in full screen resolution. Full screen means that the show fills the screen. Now, just to make this complicated, I only mean that full screen fills the screen if you have a tradional size television.
If you have one of those fancy schmancy new fangled television with the wiiiide sides and the high def and the "oh look at me! I have a great television set and poor Liz is adjusting the brightness on her sanyo on a daily basis! MUAHAHAHAHA!!!" well you are just a Bastard Person!
Cause see there are now 2 different ratios televisions and television shows can come in (and again width v height) 4:3 (traditional TV, full screen) and 16:9 (widescreen).
If you are watching Season 4 of Farscape, you will note that unlike season 1-3, season 4 is widescreen. The black bars on your television is the letterboxing. This means that the television that you have is really a 4:3 screen ratio but the show you are watching is a show made at 16:9 and the bars are compensating for that fact.
If you have a 16:9 television and are watching Farscape Season one, then the black bars along the sides of the screen are called You Need to Shut Up About Your Fancy-Ass TV. Seriously. I am not kidding.
When you vid 16:9 source in a 4:3 frame, what happens is that the image is stretched and suddenly Fred goes from being tall and slender to completely disappearing. It is scary. Also - kind of like forshadowing for Angel Season 5. No? Just me? Fine. The big deal about Aspect Ratio is that all of these TV actress's are skinny enough. If you stretch them out anymore then terrible horrible things could happen to them. Just don't.
Conversely, if you accidentally squeeze fullscreen 4:3 footage into a 16:9 letterboxing, you have finally made the Olsen Twins look healthy. Congratulations.
Hence, Disclaimer: Any technical terms I get correct is due to luck. Any technical terms that I get incorrect... well do me a favor - assume *everything* is incorrect until proven true.
So, if you are like me you have a certain fondness for a little hobby I call, "Watchin' Stuff." If you are like me, you also give little thought to whether or not there are black bars on top of and below the stuff you watch. You might notice it more when you watch a movie or when you are at a party and want to appear all snooty and smart about movies (filmedjucated, if you will) and say things like it is a travesty to watch "Die Hard" in anything but the widescreen version as the creator intended. Then you flick your nose in the air and brush off some imaginary dust from your smoking jacket and a woman in a severe black bob and bright red lipstick hands you a martini and everyone laughs and it sounds like glass breaking. Outside of this occurrance, the subject probably isn't coming up all that much.
Unless you decide to vid. If you decide to vid then someone at some point will say two words to you and those words should strike fear and dispair into your heart. Those words should chill you to the bone and cause a strong woman to weep. Those words will keep you up at night and they will break you.
The words that I write of here, my friends, those words are Aspect Ratio.
Webster's defines aspect ratio as the specific point of any frame image where a vidder will, happily and with a song in her heart, rather fall upon a sword (and failing that, the sharp edge of a copier will do nicely) than fool with this fucking thing one second longer.
While I tend to agree with this definition, I think Webster's is being overly dramatic (as is his wont). Aspect Ratio is the word we use to describe what is going on here:
note: for dramatic purposes, please pretend the role of Vidder A and Vidder B are being played by puppets
Vidder A: Hey Vidder B, what's up.
Vidder B: Oh, not much vidder A. I'm working on my vid and it just looks funky.
Vidder A: How so B?
Vidder B: Well A, I am glad you asked. See that dude right there?
[Vidder B dramatically points to character in vid, wire controlling Vidder B's arm snaps and the studio audience ignores as they understand intent and all. Wow. I really love this studio audience. You guys are great]
Vidder A: The tall skinny fella?
Vidder B: Yeah.
Vidder A: He's kinda hairy but I don't see the problem.
Vidder B: Well, see that tall skinny fella is Gimli.*
AND SCENE!
*See, he is a DWARF!!! But he looks tall and skinny cause the aspect ratio is off! Geddit? See? No? Do not make me bring out more puppets.
Let us discuss for a moment. Once upon a time, there were movies and there was television. At the movie theater, the rectangle that made up the screen was much longer than it was tall.
The rectangle that made up your television set was not nearly shaped like a movie screen. Way back then, televisions all came in different sizes, but one thing was always consistant and that was the ratio of the height versus the width of the screen on all sets was the same (ratio of course is from the Latin word rat which means "small vermin who will fuck up your pre-algebra grade point average because you will never ever never understand probability, you brain damaged git").
Every show that you watched on your television filled the entire screen (remember this - "filled the entire screen" as it will figure in very prominently when we explain what full screen means). The reason, of course, is because it was against the law to not fill an entire screen of television under the Conservation and Regulation of Broadcast Signal Screen Space Act of 1952.
This was mainly because at that time, unfilled areas on a television screen would emit invisible spectrum light waves that were widely believed to cause people to become Communists. However, in 1971 a young scientist named Emmet Brown was successful in creating the first safely letterboxed image.
What did this technology do? Well - it enabled a television screen to have a black bar put across the very top and across the very bottom. This caused the viewable area of the television to actually shrink - but only if you were thinking in, you know, real numbers. If you abandoned the shackles of reality, you would realize that these bars actually increased the viewable area as now the rectangle that made up the screen was much wider than it was taller. Like a MOVIE THEATER only teeeny tiny.
Now as you all know, Congress in 1989, in a misguided attempt at deregulating the industry passed the Letterbox Act of 1992 which required all genre television shows to be broadcast for at least one season in full screen resolution and then to make a switch to this new widescreen technology after one season thru the series run because that just makes tons of sense.
What does this mean to you - a vidder? Well it means that if you are vidding Farscape then you have season one thru season 3 in full screen resolution. Full screen means that the show fills the screen. Now, just to make this complicated, I only mean that full screen fills the screen if you have a tradional size television.
If you have one of those fancy schmancy new fangled television with the wiiiide sides and the high def and the "oh look at me! I have a great television set and poor Liz is adjusting the brightness on her sanyo on a daily basis! MUAHAHAHAHA!!!" well you are just a Bastard Person!
Cause see there are now 2 different ratios televisions and television shows can come in (and again width v height) 4:3 (traditional TV, full screen) and 16:9 (widescreen).
If you are watching Season 4 of Farscape, you will note that unlike season 1-3, season 4 is widescreen. The black bars on your television is the letterboxing. This means that the television that you have is really a 4:3 screen ratio but the show you are watching is a show made at 16:9 and the bars are compensating for that fact.
If you have a 16:9 television and are watching Farscape Season one, then the black bars along the sides of the screen are called You Need to Shut Up About Your Fancy-Ass TV. Seriously. I am not kidding.
When you vid 16:9 source in a 4:3 frame, what happens is that the image is stretched and suddenly Fred goes from being tall and slender to completely disappearing. It is scary. Also - kind of like forshadowing for Angel Season 5. No? Just me? Fine. The big deal about Aspect Ratio is that all of these TV actress's are skinny enough. If you stretch them out anymore then terrible horrible things could happen to them. Just don't.
Conversely, if you accidentally squeeze fullscreen 4:3 footage into a 16:9 letterboxing, you have finally made the Olsen Twins look healthy. Congratulations.
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no subject
Date: 2005-06-27 09:14 pm (UTC)Once upon a time I thought that it was all simple enough. There was full screen and there was widescreen and the widescreen had the black bars and this was good because it mean't that I could see both sides of the chasm luke and leia have to swing across at the same time.
Then DVDs came out and with them came anamorphic images to maximise the bits. So, I had to learn that there were 4:3 images and there were 16:9 images with black bars filling the frame AND that there were 16:9 images streched up to 4:3 images....
but wait... some of the stretchy 16:9 images still have black bars... OH because movies are sometimes 2.35:1 so they need black bars to fit them into 16:9 space and THEN they are squshed to fit them into 4:3 space.. ok ok I'm getting this....
...then I discovered that TV "pixels" and PC pixels are not the same shape! That 720x480 is 4:3 on a TV but not on a PC! Then what happens to the stretchy 16:9 images?! OKOK 720x480 becomes 640x480 and 720x80 stretchy widescreen becomes 360x480. I think I'm getting all this...
But no! I was wrong! In fact 720x480 images are 704x480 images with bars on the sides to make them 720x480 so you've got to crop first and THEN make the 704x480 image to be 640x480. And then the 16:9 stuff gets more complicated again! and you have not only top and bottom bars to deal with but side ones too!
AND THEN some dvds come out with BIG bars on ALL sides because TV actually crop off some of the image and this is called overscan and that some dvds pad the image so that less real image is cut and now OMG the numbers just dont make any sense anymore!!!
and EVEN AT THIS POINT where you think your brain has well and truly melted you realise that melted does not mean vapourised and there is more to go... such as the fact that it's actually an active image of 710.85 x 486 with a pixel aspect ratio of 4320/4739 and then ::vapourise::
The really funny thing is that other than the big stuff like whether an image is squished or not is one thing, but you then have the harsh truth that the people making these DVDs don't really know the truth about aspect ratios either and will run in fear if you mention something like ITU-R BT.601.
I'm telling you, technological knowhow is some hideous cruel black hole that swallows you up but you never reach the centre as things get infinitely worse. People are better off not knowing. Ignorance is bliss. People with knowledge are just spoiling things for the rest of us.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-27 09:19 pm (UTC)This is my new motto. I spent all weekend with Kill Bill and its amazing black bars of DOOM. Cause seriously - even at the correct aspect ratio, Uma Thurman looks incorrect.
:hed asplode:
no subject
Date: 2005-06-27 09:31 pm (UTC)Either the whole frame is 4:3 which means it mostly-looks-right when shown on a PC monitor pixel for pixel. This is when 720x480 (tv scale) can be resized to 640x480 (square pixels, PC scale) to look really right.
OR the image is 16:9 stretched into a 4:3 frame which means that it needs to be shrunk down to look right. 720x360 then adding black bars to make it 720x480 will make it the same aspect ratio as 4:3 dvds, and similarly 640x360 will make it look right on a PC monitor.
Any bars on the DVD you can ignore. Deal with the *whole frame* first. It's the whole frame that is either 4:3 or 16:9-stretched-out-into-4:3. There are only these two modes on dvds. Just make the frame not-stretched and then deal with any bars (adding or subtracting to make the frame the full thing) later and it should all work out.
Not the soundest, easiest or most logical advice in the world but knowing there are only two states can make thinking about it easier sometimes.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-27 09:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-27 10:11 pm (UTC)Try to remember that DVDs are always 720x480 pixels. If the file in your footage bin is 720x480 and it has black bars then you can be pretty sure that your editing program did not add them for you.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-27 09:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-27 09:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-27 09:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-27 09:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-27 10:08 pm (UTC)Ok here goes.
1) Not-sqaure pixels wtf?
On a dvd, there is an image which is 720x480. This is true of every NTSC dvd you will ever buy. 720x480 is not actually 4:3 in ratio. If you do the math, you find out that it's off. 640x480 is 4:3 720x480 is not.
However, TVs are 4:3 and they display dvds just fine. That's because they have not-square pixels. TV "pixels" are actually taller than they are wide. and so rectangular not square. This means that when 720x480 is shown on a TV it becomes 4:3.
2) OK so what does this mean when editing the stuff?
Editing programs tend to presume that you want the stuff you are editing to look 4:3 when you are editing it. So usually any 720x480 footage is interpreted as not-square pixels, sometimes known as 0.9 PAR (pixel aspect ratio). DV, for example, is always interpreted like this in most editing programs. This means that rather than showing the video as 720x480 it will be resized on your monitor to be 640x480 so that it looks 4:3 to you when you edit.
Graphics and other image you might create on a PC, however, will be square pixels because computer monitors have totally square pixels. In order for a square pixel image to have the same 'rationess' and look the same as a 0.9 ratio image, the image needs to be resized or cropped or whatever. Your editing program may or may not do this, it depends on whether you tell it to interpret the still as square pixels or as 0.9. As I said, many editing programs interpret all 720x480 source as being 0.9 PAR.
3) and what about exporting?
Well, honestly it generally doesnt matter. See, the pixel aspect ratio is about how something is interpreted. If you have a 720x480 source video and you export it 720x480 it's still going to have the same amount of pixels no matter what. When your editing program "resizes" your dvd footage to 0.9 PAR all it only does that on the preview monitor, the pixels are still the same.
The only way I could imagine this ever being an issue is if you have some footage which is being interpreted as square and some other footage which is being interpreted as not. If all your source footage is 720x480, though, it's likely to be interpreted universally the same. So, if everything you edit is in DV then you do not need to worry about pixel aspect ratios as by default everything will be set up correctly.
As I do not edit in DV (I edit in a virual, lossless mode) I tend to tell my editing software (Premiere) that everything is square pixels so that I can predict what is going on. 720x480 looks like 720x480 and exports as 720x480 looking the same as it did. That is fine for me and the way I like to do things but the end result is no different.
So now you know (sorta - I know its a bit mysterious in practice). Square pixels and not-square pixels are almost always about whether something is displayed unchanged or compensated so that the aspect ratio looks correct on a monitor. If you have a sources that are being interpreted differently by your editing software then it is possible that one will be resized to be the other but that really does depend on your program.
In short - keep them all the same, source settings, export settings, everything and you should be fine.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-27 10:22 pm (UTC)::is afraid::
And you use avisynth - right? You pull right from the vob file - right.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-27 10:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-27 10:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-29 10:37 am (UTC)But not the PAL ones, right?
*weeps Euro tears in the background*
no subject
Date: 2005-06-27 09:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-27 10:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-28 12:08 am (UTC)Hmmm.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-28 06:00 am (UTC)However setting 1:1 aspect ratio in TMPG was a bad idea because it wont work on dvd players which only recognise the 4:3 or 16:9 flags. 720x480@4:3 is the correct way to do it for making m2vs.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-28 07:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-28 02:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-28 02:19 pm (UTC)