I tend to build everything using 1050 now, but you’re right, some editing suites really don’t know what to make of it. (I came across the Avid issue while still at the BBC – but don’t know of others of the top of my head).

I would hope 1050 becomes industry standard eventually as it does lead to the best (i.e. non-distorted) results.

My suggestion is still to build at 1050 in After Effects (and thus any Photoshop material also at 1050) – that way you still have the option of dropping the whole thing into a new 1024 comp before the final render. It’s a bit of a cop out, but at least then if you need the extra pixels, you have them.

Or render at 1050 and use a quick After Effects comp to crop to 1024 only if the edit suite can’t handle it.

Sorry, but that’s the best I can suggest!

thanks for posting,

Mike

We just switched back from Adobe Premiere CS4 to Avid Media Composer again. When still working With Premiere, we worked with “1050″ as it was compatible with After Effects CS4. (It all made sense when I first heard about it and now even more with your post…).
I’m curious though, how many other editing suites work with “1050″? I know Avid doesn’t… Will it be an industry standard or does the flatscreen (HD) TV-market have anything to do with it? We Use PS CS4 and AE CS4 and Avid. I guess we just have to work with
“1024″ again… What would you recommend?

Grtz,

Owen

Thanks a lot for taking the time to explain this! I just switched to CS4 and the new sizes were driving me crazy to say the least. Now i know why wich will make me sleep a lot better.
So again thanks for this!!

Kind regards,

Eddie
NL

Boaz

But this begs the question – does this mean that the 1920×1080 square pixels for HDTV is also wrong by 18 pixels?

Jeff

Learn something new every day…

Thanks!

Jim

Thanks for the comment.
Possibly a PAL vs NTSC thing? I have a hunch NTSC footage gets squashed/stretched the other way from PAL.

Just checked – Adobe give pixel aspect ratios of 0.91 for D1/DV NTSC and 1.09 for D1/DV PAL.
Might that be it?

Mike

One note: I believe that your diagram entitled “television pixels aren’t square” is incorrect. Aren’t non-square TV pixels longer on the vertical side? You have the pixels looking wider in your diagram.

A video frame looks a bit too wide when viewing it on a PC, but when viewing it on a TV it skinnies up, therefore it seems as though the TV pixel would be taller.

I’m no expert, so can you tell me if this is correct?

Thanks!

Jim

As 1050×576 isn’t 16:9 and Photoshop CS4 presets are still 1024×576 from a design point of view do I need to think about the extra 26 pixels? It seems to me that it’s just dead space that never gets seen?