I would like to out put an animation to DVD in order to watch it on widescreen TV. I have used the search funtion here but there seems to be a different answer for each time this is addressed. Can anyone tell me the proper setup? The actual 16x9 button is not what I’m looking for since it renders each frame of animation in Hi def which creates huge files. I am in North America so if I select NTSC, what is the x y ratio? Is there a set-up where the animation can be viewed on a widescreen TV and regular TV with the black bars? Please someone point me in the right direction!
TV resolutions are always confusing for me because they don’t use square pixels. but when I need to prepare widescreen stuff for TV, I just render the scene at 1280x720 (or 1920x1080 if you need true HD) progressive using square pixels (1:1), also set frame rate to 24 fps.
render the movie at 640x360 is fine too, if you are really short on CPU power.
just render the scene, then encode it to a DVD using one of those dvd maker softwares like nero. It will not automatically add the ‘black bars’ for you, but when you play it on a 4:3 tv, most DVD player are smart enough to give the user the choice of either fill the screen with the picture (pan & scan) or leave some black space (letterbox)
thank you for the reply but I still have one question: 24 fps? Video is 30 fps.
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…and i believe movies theaters project movies at 24fps… go figure.
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30fps for DVD in NTSC or 25 for PAL. Don’t render fields unless you plan to use on an old TV. Render progressive and let the DVD player output what it needs. Also if you wish to save render time runder at 869x480 for wide-screen as to fool some software (iMovie for example) to make it wide screen for DVD. Rendering at 1280x720 to have DVD software shrink down to 720x480 is waisting time.
thanks to all who have replied. Your help is greatly appreciated. Sorry, but I have another question: two replies have mention “render progressive.” What is this please and how is it done? I have looked through the manual but can’t find anything on it. I’ve looked for it as a button in Blender but still no luck. Anyone?
Progressive scan is the normal output of CG. You have to convince Blender to do ‘fields’ or interlaced video. DVD players can do this with the signal automatically. Progressive-scan is what almost every computer monitor does. Now 1080i HDTV is interlaced (hence the ‘i’.) You would want to field for that specific resolution (although I tend to do 1080p and let the tv do it for me.)
As far as DVD, here is the checklist:
Render at some like 869x480 at aspect 100x100 (x and y) for widescreen. If the software can do (your encoding software) render at 720x480 (16x9 aspect) with some kind of widescreen bit turned on so it knows to do that.
30 frames a second for NTCS or 25 for PAL.
just to make sure I’m understanding you: progressive rendering comes after the animation is rendered and involves the actual DVD making process? Thanks for the patience.
from my experience, you can either convert a progressive picture to 2 fields AFTER the rendering is done, OR you can do it in blender as you render by enabling the ‘field’ button. Both works.
thanks you’ve been very helpful.
Progressive is the normal output in blender. Fields break up every other line and displays them on a new frame. Only good for interlace.
I’ve done some research on this. From the information I’ve found, you should first click the NTSC setting, then change the x and y values to 32 and 27.
That will give you a simple, non-Hi-Def, 720x480 video that runs at standard 30fps that can be viewed on a widescreen TV and regular TV with the black bars (assuming you bring it into your editing program properly).
The whole interlacing or not interlacing is up to you. Interlacing gives you an image that moves in a way that looks similar to broadcast video, whereas non-interlacing gives you an image that moves in a way that looks similar to film.
And, for what it’s worth, unless you want to re-master your animation in some Hi-Def format sometime in the future, there’s no point in rendering at the crazy huge resolutions some have suggested here (no offense, folks).
Correct me if I’m wrong, DVD works very well with 24fps progressive, no matter what the final output from the player to the TV is -NTSC, PAL, etc. (So I’ve been told -I haven’t run a test yet)
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um…wow…lots of sorta correct info here. . .ok, so USA TV is NTSC. 720x480 11:10 pixel aspect ratio 30 fps interlaced. 720 is the widest limit for good old TV, and it is 4:3 visual or picture aspect ratio because the pixels are taller than wider by about 12.5%, so 4801.125=540 which would be exact visually 4:3. So, you want to render in 720x405 fields odd interlaced, because 720/169=405 and you cannot change the way the phosphors are painted on your screen.
Interlacing is motion blur for TV, and Blender calculates 1/60 of a second motion offsets when computing the intermediate field. It cannot be reconstructed from progressive renders.
So Click NTSC, Fields Odd, and change the Y to 405. That is the render settings for the first scene and gives you that 16:9 ratio you want.
Then in that same Blender file, create a new scene called LetterBox. In that scene, Click NTSC but do not change the Y and no fields. Using the VSE, Add the first scene. offset the scene vertically (Y), using the Translate effect, by 37 pixels…that will center the letterbox format vertically on your screen. Render and you have it for TV. You can now burn it onto a DVD.
Films are shot at 24fps, and when mastered onto DVDs, are upscaled to 30 fps. TVs always show you the video at 30 fps, even if the animation or original video was shot or rendered at anything else, higher or lower. LCD and HD Plasma panels use square pixels and may use progressive scanning, but he did not ask about them…
No offense to anyone…
But I’m telling you, doing 720x480 with the x and y and 32 and 27 works, and (with my setup anyway) works best. The fact that the pixel dimensions are standard NTSC avi means that there’s less work needed on the part of the encoder (it’s not having to do any unusual resampling). And by setting the x and y values to 32 and 27, that takes care of the whole non-square pixel issue.
The downside of this method is that when you look at a preview image (f12), and when you look at your rendered out avi before putting it in a NLE or anything (where you can tell the program the video is an anamorphic widescreen video…thus allowing the NLE to stretch it out when previewing), the image looks squished. Of course that’s because of the anamorphic nature of the set-up.
I’m not saying using odd pixel dimensions doesn’t work. I’m just saying that 720x480 x=32 y=27 does work, and echoes the way DV cameras and such generate 16x9 video (i.e. a standard 720x480 video image that’s been anamorphically squished).
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t that give you a non-anamorphic image? You, as the user, are adding in the black bars. But that means when shown on a widescreen TV there will be black bars all around the image (sides and top and bottom). You’d have to use the TV remote and tell the TV to zoom in on the image to get it to fill the entire screen.
But if you make the video anamorphically in blender (dimensions=720x480, x=32, y=27), and then set up the encoder to create a widescreen flagged 16x9 MPEG, then it will show properly by default on both normal TVs (black bars on top and bottom) and widescreen (fill up the whole screen).
Plus you retain more detail in the image because you’re using all 480 horizontal lines of pixels, instead of just 405 lines.
Try it in blender and some NLE. I assure you, it works.
I render to widescreen NTSC all the time at work (using 3DS Max). We use a resolution of 720x486 and a 1.2 pixel aspect ratio. Which ever numbers you put in the X and Y that give you the 1.2 aspect ratio do not matter, as long as the ratio is there (1.18 is more accurate, but Max is a little dumb - I think that’s why we go to 486 high). Programs like Virtual Dub/Avidemux (linux version) can properly interpret the aspect ratio when you tell it to.