Flash for TV 1414 Responses

Last post: 1 month, 4 weeks ago | Thread started: Jun 22, 08, 10:55 a.m.

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• fifty50

  I just got commissioned at the last minute to do some Adobe Flash animations for a TV program. The specs they gave me are:
  "The show is SD NTSC DF, Aspect Ratio is: Anamorphic (16:9 squeezed down to 4:3). We will need a full res quicktime (.mov)..."

  I'm guessing the anamorphic thing means it's 16:9 with letterboxing to fill in the 4:3 area, but what size do I make my stage to fit these specs?

  Jun 22, 08, 10:55 a.m. – Permalink

• fifty50

  P.S. the deadline is Monday afternoon so any help is appreciated

  

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  Dog-earJun 22, 08, 11:46 a.m. – Permalink

• formed

  You'd better read up on anamorphic!
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ana…

  Basically, it is a way of cheating and is particularly effective if you want to save on the render times. Everything will looked squashed in the 4:3, but when played at 16:9 it'll look correct.
  No idea how you'd do this in Flash. Look at AE or a video app to understand the settings (basically rectangular pixels vs. square, which is what our monitors are).

  For your deadline, I'll pray for you.

  

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  Dog-earJun 22, 08, 11:52 a.m. – Permalink

• formed

  FYI - we never render or work that way (we render everything as square pixles, keeps more data on the screen, then convert to whatever we need). So I might not be the best advice giver.

  Just read up on it to thoroughly understand how it will work.

  

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  Dog-earJun 22, 08, 11:54 a.m. – Permalink

• acescence

  if you have photoshop, select file > new document and then set to film and video presets and it'll show pixel dimension for various video formats. not sure that will help, but it's a start

  

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  Dog-earJun 22, 08, 12:08 p.m. – Permalink

• fifty50

  I still don't know what this "SD NTSC DF" means

  

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  Dog-earJun 22, 08, 12:13 p.m. – Permalink

• acescence

  standard definition
  national television system committee
  drop frame

  • basically a normal north american/Philippine tv signal– omgitsacamera

  

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  Dog-earJun 22, 08, 12:22 p.m. – Permalink

• fifty50

  Well the NTSC part was obvious to me, just the SD and DF parts I didn't know. What I really need to know is what size to set up my stage and what settings to use when I export to QuickTime.

  

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  Dog-earJun 22, 08, 1:25 p.m. – Permalink

• sea_sea

  work on your comp in 16x9...
  ...in flash set your workarea to 1280x720, do your animation there, export it to video using those same dimensions.... THEN.... take your clip into After Effects or whatever and re-render it to the QT file you need, resizing on render to the NTSC setting (should be 720x486)

  Formed's post up top is saying this same thing

  

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  Dog-earJun 22, 08, 1:46 p.m. – Permalink

• fifty50

  Hmm thanks for the help so far. I don't have After Effects so I was just going to export directly from Flash. I have my stage set to 1280x720, and am exporting movie to QuickTime with the following settings, let me know if I'm incorrect:
  Render Width: 1280px
  Render Height: 720px
  Maintain Aspect Ratio (checked)
  Compression: DVCPRO50 - NTSC
  Quality: Best
  Frame rate: 24
  Scan Mode: Progressive
  Aspect Ratio: 4:3
  Dimensions: 720x486 16:9 (853x480)
  Scale: Letterbox

  Now I'm probably way off here, so just let me know. I need to be walked through this, how embarrassing!

  • you might want to get it.– hiimerik

  

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  Dog-earJun 22, 08, 2 p.m. – Permalink

• sea_sea

  you HAVE to export out of flash at the full 1280x720..

  Then you have to use ANOTHER program to distort that image down to 720x486 (NTSC standard)

  I would recommend Quicktime Pro... its like 30 bucks! You need a program to resize/distort the video... you are not letterboxing!! no black bars. The final file you give them will be 720x486 and will look squeezed. (people will look skinnier, a perfect circle will be a tall oval, etc.)

  It'll look weird on your computer but when played back on a 16x9 tv it'll stretch the image back out and look right.

  As far as codec goes, when you export out of quicktime use the animation codec at best quality....

  best a luck... I'll check the post later, just in case

  

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  Dog-earJun 22, 08, 2:24 p.m. – Permalink

• fifty50

  Cool! Just exported a couple test files and I'm pretty sure I've got a handle on this now. Thanks a lot for your help, everyone :)
  Maybe I'll post a link to the finished product later on.

  

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  Dog-earJun 22, 08, 5:12 p.m. – Permalink

• pr2

  the specs don't really make sense as it looks like they are asking for 720x480 file with letterbox (black bars) on top and bottom. Make sure you have your frame rate set to 29.97 not 24.

  

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  Dog-earJun 22, 08, 9:52 p.m. – Permalink

• fifty50

  Thanks for the help, turned out just fine!

  

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  Dog-earJun 23, 08, 6:50 p.m. – Permalink

• Vicentvangogh

  ask for a 50% deposit up front

  

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  Dog-earJun 23, 08, 7:07 p.m. – Permalink