HD Movie Advise

[Infrared digital]

Hi

We have to create a promotional movie which includes video footage and CG rendered with VRay in HD.

By way of getting the process correct, if anyone has done this before will you provide any tips or things to avoid as our time frame is a bit tight and don't have time to get anything wrong.

In Max we are rendering out at the HDTV (video) setting which is 1920x1080 @ an Image Aspect of 1.77778 and a Pixel Aspect of 1.00000. Is this the same dimensions etc.. that we should use to setup Premiere ?

The final output is for a Widescreen TV/Plasma PAL.

Thanks for your help

N

[Paul Oblomov]

It's all correccct Seems like.

If pixel aspect 1.0 - you can't miss anyway.

[Infrared digital]

When outputting to the DVD, is the Pixel Aspect still 1.0 ?

[Neilg]

Are you sure you need the full 1920? Most HD tv's are only 1300~

Aside from that, youre good to go. Might want to look into the progressive/interlaced thing though, and check the fps that you render to.

[Infrared digital]

Your right, there seems to be some places that use 1920x1080 and others that use 1280x720 so, I am confused.

The interlaced thing or Progressive - if the footage is shot in progressive, it is meant to have more of a filmic look apparently. I intend to do everything Progressive anyway - not sure how this works with rendered images. Actually, I think they are rendered as Interlaced - due to the 'Field Order' setting in the Preferences dialogue under Rendering. If I am wrong then please correct me.

Its all fun !

[instinct]

If you want to render interlaced you also have to enable "render to fields" in the render settings. I wouldnt recommend that at all tho. Usually i'd say 1280x720 is sufficient even for 35mm scanned to HD. Depending on the footage quality you can even get away with doing 1024x768 sometimes.

Thorsten

[RErender]

When outputting to the DVD, is the Pixel Aspect still 1.0 ?

You mean HD dvd? Otherwise if your target is standard DVD your rendering way too big.

[Infrared digital]

What I meant was - when rendering from max, the pixel aspect is 1.0 or square. When exporting the movie from Premiere, do I still export it with square pixels? Will square pixels look fine on a widescreen tv ? Not stretched or whatever.

[RErender]

Yes a 1.0 pixel aspect will look fine on a HD tv, somethings to note though, most HD tv's are 720p not 1080p and if you are going to dvd they only handle ED, in the case of the dvd you will need to change the pixel aspect.

[mike_kennedy]

720 might be easier to work with both in Max and in Pemiere and after effects, and it can be down converted or up converted to the Upper rez HD or down to SD.
Cheers
Mike K

[Infrared digital]

if you are going to dvd they only handle ED, in the case of the dvd you will need to change the pixel aspect.

Does this mean that HD movies can't be stored on DVD for playing on a HDTV ? Also, why would I have to change the Pixel Aspect ?

it can be down converted or up converted to the Upper rez HD or down to SD.

I am not sure how this works. Will a movie @ 720 not lose clarity if converted up to HD?

[RErender]

dvd (mpeg2) can only support 4:3 SD video so you need to render the 16:9 footage at a 1.2 pixel aspect to fit into the format, then when it is displayed it will stretch out to fit the wide screen.

There have been a lot of posts on the subject here are a couple.

http://www.chaosgroup.com/forum/phpB...d+pixel+aspect
http://www.chaosgroup.com/forum/phpB...d+pixel+aspect

[panthon]

Does this mean that HD movies can't be stored on DVD for playing on a HDTV?

DVDs can only play 720X576 in PAL versions. To play HD u will need a BluRay player or HDDVD player, or a Hard disk based device capable of HD output via HDMI.

[unknown]

just finished an HD res movie. u cant currently burn it to anyhting, bar blueray, i think. but dont quote me on that. delivery has to be Quicktime. H264 is a good one for full HD, other options as we did was deliver on HDCAM tape. thats the only way that I know of currently. a post house can dump to tape for you from their edit suites.

we edited, and comped at full 1920, and everyhting was fine. we had over 30 layers in AE, no probs. premiere edits with rushes so to speak, it creates little versions. final output, was 1280 res HD, its smaller brother, as some footage we got given was at this size. so working at 1920 and downsizing means nice sharp render quality. plus we have the option to output an HD version when tech catches up.

[Neilg]

You can always burn it to dvd as data and just play it on other things, although you are limited to x-boxen and pc's