aspect ratio for tv viewing . . .

Tsunami Jones · Post by **Tsunami Jones** » Thu Mar 11, 2004 6:18 pm

I recently burned a dvd with some amvs on it, and I wasn't thinking about tv margins, and obviously, a good portion of the sides of the video got cut off. So, what's a good aspect ratio for viewing amvs on a tv so nothing gets cut off?

Scintilla · Post by **Scintilla** » Thu Mar 11, 2004 9:12 pm

Something will always get cut off on a normal TV no matter what resolution you use.

But 720x480 MPEG-1s or -2s, encoded for 4:3 playback, have always worked fine for me.

Tsunami Jones · Post by **Tsunami Jones** » Thu Mar 11, 2004 9:17 pm

hmmmm . . . that's what i was using, but if stuff always ends up getting cut off, I guess I won't worry about it too much. Thanks!

madbunny · Post by **madbunny** » Thu Mar 11, 2004 9:19 pm

You are thinking of 'safe areas'.
Your tv will stretch your video to the edges of the screen, which are usually beyond the border of your usable viewing areas, the rule of thumb is 6-10%.

If your source is 720x480, try about 45 to 50 pixels up from the bottom.

Jebadia · Post by **Jebadia** » Thu Mar 11, 2004 9:56 pm

I thought you were supposed to just shave off 8 pixels from each side?

madbunny · Post by **madbunny** » Thu Mar 11, 2004 10:32 pm

Jebadia wrote:I thought you were supposed to just shave off 8 pixels from each side?

that would be to clean up artifacting, audio bleed and so forth.
He wanted to know where to put his subtitles so they could be visible on a tv after creating a VCD or some such.

Tsunami Jones · Post by **Tsunami Jones** » Thu Mar 11, 2004 11:49 pm

madbunny wrote:that would be to clean up artifacting, audio bleed and so forth.
He wanted to know where to put his subtitles so they could be visible on a tv after creating a VCD or some such

no, not subtitles. What was being cut off was the sides of the video.

madbunny · Post by **madbunny** » Fri Mar 12, 2004 12:10 am

Tsunami Jones wrote:
madbunny wrote:that would be to clean up artifacting, audio bleed and so forth.
He wanted to know where to put his subtitles so they could be visible on a tv after creating a VCD or some such
no, not subtitles. What was being cut off was the sides of the video.

Ohhhh. Ok. The rule still applies: 6-10% will get cut of no matter what you do depending on the monitor it's being viewed on. I suppose you could have mastered a 16:9 video... instead of a 4:3, is that the case?

Corran · Post by **Corran** » Fri Mar 12, 2004 8:56 am

This may help..

Safe Zones
Early TV picture tubes distorted the image near the edges, so it was decided that the picture would be overscanned with the edge of the picture hidden by a plastic bezel. However, when working with video on a computer you see the whole image, so you must always be aware that the edges of your image will not be visible on a TV. The non-visible portion of the image corresponds roughly to the area inset 5% from each edge (about 36 pixels from each side and 24 pixels from the top and bottom). The area inside is often called the "action-safe zone." Make sure that anything that has to be seen is inside this zone.

Additionally, there is another region that is inset 5% from the edges of the action-safe zone known as the "title-safe zone." Older picture tubes still produced some distortion outside this zone, making text harder to read, so titles were always including inside this zone. Most TVs nowadays don't have a problem with text outside of this zone, but it's still common practice to use it. You may want to play it safe, but if it's not possible I wouldn't worry about it, since the likelihood of someone viewing the video on an old TV that has this problem is low.

Video editing software such as Premiere often have an option where you can lay a diagram of the safe zones over your video for reference.

VegettoEX · Post by **VegettoEX** » Fri Mar 12, 2004 1:26 pm

Sometimes I find that having a visual aid helps, as well ^^;;. Note that above image is taking a 640x480 image, not 720x480. Should help, though!