Suggestion for FAQ - "What output resolution to use?&qu

[LittleFenris]

I think with High Definition TVs becoming more and more popular, it would be a good idea for animators to get used to working in widescreen HD formats and resolutions. You'll notice a lot of new stuff is being made widescreen (like Afro Samurai, etc..) I think the correct HD resolutions should be added to the appropriate FAQ topic and to the selectable presets in Anime Studio Pro.

1080i - 1920 x 1080
720p - 1280 x 720

1080p and i are what I and most in the video industry consider "True HD", and 720p being considered "Enhanced Definition"...either way these are the 2 standards of HDTV now and it is what a lot of network programming (CSI, SuperBowl, some news, etc..) is being broadcast in these days.

I understand that most users can't actually encode or burn their animation to an HD-DVD or Blu-Ray disc right now, but the fact is they can have the original source animation done in full HD resolution and still be able to export it for Standard Definition DVD playback and have the future ability to put there creations on HD media.

Just a thought and I doubt it would be hard to add to either the program presets or especially the FAQ topic.

[Touched]

I work in broadcast, and I can tell you that everything is made in HD currently, not just a lot of new stuff. It may not all be broadcast in HD yet, but you can be assured that it's all made that way, in preparation for the digital broadcast changeover. The official US changeover is set for next year.

[Rasheed]

Some remarks...

According to Wikipedia, standard-television is 480i, enhanced-definition television is 480p, and HD is everything better than 480p (so from 720p). I believe this to be accurate. The most used broadcast formats are 720p (sports) and 1080i (anything else than sports, so Hollywood cinema movies, etc.). For most viewers, 1080i is indistinguishable from 1080p. Because many broadcast content suppliers offer a lot of channels, the limiting factor for the image quality of broadcast HD is not image size, but rather image compression. These limitations in quality do not apply to Blue-Ray and HD-DVD, of course. However, those are far away from acceptance by the general public, because most HD-TVs don't necessarily play HDCP (High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection) protected content from Blue-Ray or HD-DVD, because somewhat older (one or two years) HD TVs aren't HDCP-certified.

[LittleFenris]

I work in broadcast, and I can tell you that everything is made in HD currently, not just a lot of new stuff. It may not all be broadcast in HD yet, but you can be assured that it's all made that way, in preparation for the digital broadcast changeover. The official US changeover is set for next year.

Yeah, we did all our live action commercials in HD this past year and will continue to do so from this point forward. We still do a lot of post-production heavy spots in SD since the TV stations don't need HD yet, but the live action filmed stuff we shoot and edit in HD and export to SD for TV stations. I just figured I'd throw the idea of at least letting the users know what the standard resolutions are and let them have the option in presets to animate at that size to "future-proof" their animations. I will be doing this with the personal project I'm planning right now.

[Touched]

I agree, it definitely needs to be in there.

[slowtiger]

Since we're doing animation here: don't even think of using something with i (= interlaced). Produce in 720p, 1080p, 1920p, which means "progressive". These can, if necessary, easily be converted into the according interlaced format without change of quality. The other way round artifacts will occur.

It is helpful to remember that a production format doesn't need to be the same as a broadcast or distribution format. It helps if it is better (in terms of dimension). Big size and full colour always can be transferrred into something smaller and compressed. But something small with reduced colours or framerate can never be restored to full size and colour depth.

[Touched]

Actually, in computer animation, some people use interlacing to create the maximum possible smoothness, rendering their animation in 60 FIELDS per second, where each interlaced field holds a unique frame. Personally, I think that's overboard, and might not look good at all on a progressive scan TV. But it's something that we can do using Anime Studio. (Well, generating content at 60 frames per second, anyway. The interlacing would need to be done in another program.)

[LittleFenris]

It is helpful to remember that a production format doesn't need to be the same as a broadcast or distribution format. It helps if it is better (in terms of dimension). Big size and full colour always can be transferrred into something smaller and compressed. But something small with reduced colours or framerate can never be restored to full size and colour depth.

This is actually a great point. You could produce the animation larger than 1920x1080 as long as you keep those dimensions in mind when scaling up your specific project dimensions. Also you could animate and render tests at a much lower res just keeping that aspect ratio in mind, then for the final render change AS's settings to a much higher res (yay vector graphics!) The other good thing is you could do 1920x1080 (1080p) even if your target is 1024x720 (720p) since scaling down is fine, its scaling up you don't want to do.

I guess in the end at least if the user knows what the proper dimensions are they can at least frame the animation correctly and since AS is vector based it really doesn't matter what res they animate at, as long as they keep the correct aspect ration in mind. You could even animate to a 16:9 format, but frame the action to the usual 4:3 so the animation would have the flexibility of being put onto DVD for "normal" TVs in a fullscreen format, or even for HDTVs in a widescreen format.