Adobe Premiere aspect ratio question

[Guest bigblock]

I'm using Windows XP and Premiere 6.0 to edit.

 

I do my projects in widescreen mode and when it's done exporting the file, it comes out in widescreen (just as I want.)

 

But if I open the file with Windows Media Player, it opens it in 4:3 ratio.

 

And when I use MySonic DVD Burner to burn the video, it also comes out in 4:3.

 

Should I be using another burning program or setting somethign up differently?

 

Thanks!

[Alvin Pingol]

AFAIK, WMP treats all video files as having square pixels. Thus, it will display them as so, and the image will be stretched vertically.

 

Your burner is probably doing the same thing. You need to find a setting that deals with pixel aspect ratio, and set it accordingly. This will attatch header information to the file that the DVD player reads, which prompts it to switch to widescreen display.

 

Hope this helps.

[Kei Sugimoto]

Sorry if I'm misunderstanding your question but

If you want to letterbox it, just vertically resize your project to 75% in Premiere or AfterEffects.

[Guest bigblock]

You understood my question correctly :)

Just an added question though, where do I go (within Premiere) to adjust the percentage?

I was fiddling around in the project settings but I'm not sure where I should be looking.

[Guest bigblock]

Ah I think I might have it. Tell me if this is right though.

 

Upon exporting the movie, I go to "settings." then "special processing," then "modify," and from there, I can adjust? The title on this page says "cropping."

 

I'm assuming this is where I'd adjust the vertical aspect.

[DanStewart]

If you are seeing superflous parts of the image then sure, just crop them out. But If you are seeing a distorted image that isn't using the whole width of the 16:9 screen, you want to tag the movie as anamorphic as Alvin said.

If it's not anamorphic and you want to zoom in, then crop away but be aware that you are reducing the resolution of the image that will then be blown to fill the vertical size of the screen you display it on.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

Premiere makes an absolutely horrible job of this, even with "better resize" checked in export options.

 

Better, do it in VirtualDub, a free manipulation tool. Render out to an uncompressed AVI, then resize (with either Precise Bilinear or Precise Bicubic selected) to the appropriate pixel dimensions and use the "expand and letterbox" options to get the thing back to the right size for your output codec. Or, don't, and use a high-compression codec to produce a true widescreen movie for the internet or a CD-ROM.

 

Nobody should have to put up with the horror of Premiere's resizing algorithm. I recently dealt with some very high-value stuff shot for the Dubai Tourist Board which had the awful aliasing and flickering jaggies that Premiere loves to create.

 

Phil

[Kei Sugimoto]

If you want to do it in Premiere I think you can use one of the video filters in the distort section. The filter will have to be applied to each individual clip, so it would be better to render out the whole thing as one clip and then aply the letterboxing. I use Premiere Pro, forgot exactly how to do it in 6.0. A cleaner way to do it would be to use AfterEffects. Once you export your finished edit from Premiere drop it into a composition in AfterEffects and go to the scale paramater. While leaving the horizontal value at 100, change the vertical value to 75.

 

By the way, if I understand your situation I dont think you should CROP. If you crop, you will just be cutting off the top and bottom parts of your screen without fixing your aspect ration problem. Your subjects will probably look like they are vertically elongated.