Is this format okay for an AMV contest?

[Dramaya]

With me not really being a not-exactly-tech-savvy person, and therefore having lots of questions regarding technical issues, I've got one concerning the proper formatting for a video I plan to submit to an AMV contest in the future. I am aware that the usual format for contests is 720x480, and I have compressed a video and submitted it in that format before. It was a finalist so I got to see it on the projection screen, and it came out fine. (FYI, I use iMovie HD for iMac.)

This is where my question comes in: in the info for the new vid I just compressed, it says that the format is 720x480 (680x480), while the size is 680x480 pixels. I want to submit my video like that because it's at Full Quality, and when I used the compression settings from the previous video, there was some unpleasant pixelation this time around even though it was compressed at Best Quality. Is there a difference between format and size? If it hopefully makes it in as a finalist, will it be screened properly? It says in the contest rules that "all videos will be scaled to this size [720x480]."

I hope my question makes sense, and that I actually sound like I know what I'm talking about. Thanks in advance!

[Hareoic]

I'm not really sure. Are you talking about pixel aspect ratio to display aspect ratio?

[Dramaya]

Um... what's pixel aspect ratio? XD I tell ya, I'm not really good with terms like those.

[Qyot27]

Um... what's pixel aspect ratio? XD I tell ya, I'm not really good with terms like those.

Display aspect ratio refers to the shape of the image. 16:9, 2.35:1, 4:3, etc. It's the shape assumed by the media player. Is the display widescreen, more square-looking, or so on.

Pixel aspect ratio means the actual shape of the pixels, not of the entire display. This is because computer monitors use square pixels and TVs use rectangular pixels. 720x480 on a TV is equivalent to 640x480 on a computer monitor, because TV pixels are taller than they are wide.

It's best to keep the aspect ratio that you edit at the same as your source and finally as what gets exported from the editing program. All of that manipulation can be done after exporting so that you can retain as much quality as possible.


And what do you mean by pixelation? What compression format did you use? You said Best Quality, but 'Best Quality' according to what standard? Every single format Quicktime can compress to has an option for Best Quality, but if you're using something like Cinepak (is that even available in Quicktime anymore?), Best Quality isn't going to be enough. If you can, use Uncompressed, or Animation. I'm not sure if Perian allows Quicktime to compress in other formats like HuffYUV, or if it's simply a decoder. Somebody else that actually uses a Mac will have to answer that one.

(BTW, I keep saying Quicktime because iMovie - and practically or every Mac app that deals with media in a unified sense - uses Quicktime as a backend)

[Qyot27]

All of that manipulation can be done after exporting so that you can retain as much quality as possible.

Gah, double post.

By 'all of that manipulation' I meant adjusting the aspect ratio to say, 640x480, if your source, editor, and export were all at 720x480.

[Dramaya]

the format is 720x480 (680x480)

Oopsies. Meant 640x480. Sorry if that caused any confusion.

Display aspect ratio refers to the shape of the image. 16:9, 2.35:1, 4:3, etc. It's the shape assumed by the media player. Is the display widescreen, more square-looking, or so on.

Yeah, the footage is ripped from a widescreen, so it is 4:3. It also has the letterboxing.

And what do you mean by pixelation? What compression format did you use? You said Best Quality, but 'Best Quality' according to what standard?

iMovie itself has a compression function, which is what I have always used to compress my videos into a Quicktime movie. In iMovie, there are all different sorts of settings to compress the finished movie, though the one I have mainly used is called Expert Settings, where you can adjust the way the movie is compressed yourself (such as size, format, fps, quality, etc.). Using Expert Settings the first time I ripped the movie, I set the size at 720x480 and the quality at Best Quality, which is pretty much the best you can do in Expert Settings. When I played back the finished movie in Quicktime, though, there was some pixelation in the first few clips, which I believe is simply due to the speed of the clips themselves. The rest of the video after that was perfectly fine. (I don't use any of those compression programs you mentioned, btw.)

I didn't want any of that pixelation, of course, since I hope to enter it in this AMV contest, so I next tried using a compression setting called Full Quality, which basically means the movie is ripped at pretty much the same quality it appears in the movie maker itself. The finished Quicktime movie came out at 640x680 in a .dv file, and although the file size is huge, the quality is fantastic-- little to no pixelation at all. Maybe that's because the format isn't as stretched out like it might have been at 720x480, now that I think about it.

Anyway, I think we sorta deviated from my initial question. Since I have a movie that is at the quality I want it to be, and I'm no longer concerned about pixelation, I just want to make sure that it'll be screened okay in the format that it's in. I'm also slightly confused because it says that the format is 720x480, but the size is 640x480. Here's a screenshot of the info as it appears in Quicktime, which might help to clarify some things: http://s228.photobucket.com/albums/ee15 ... eoinfo.png

[Dramaya]

The finished Quicktime movie came out at 640x680 in a .dv file

Ack. Meant 640x480 again. XD

[Qyot27]

iMovie itself has a compression function, which is what I have always used to compress my videos into a Quicktime movie. In iMovie, there are all different sorts of settings to compress the finished movie, though the one I have mainly used is called Expert Settings, where you can adjust the way the movie is compressed yourself (such as size, format, fps, quality, etc.). Using Expert Settings the first time I ripped the movie, I set the size at 720x480 and the quality at Best Quality, which is pretty much the best you can do in Expert Settings. When I played back the finished movie in Quicktime, though, there was some pixelation in the first few clips, which I believe is simply due to the speed of the clips themselves. The rest of the video after that was perfectly fine. (I don't use any of those compression programs you mentioned, btw.)

I know, but what I'm asking is which compression type it was set on.

Does this image look like the dialog you were dealing with concerning the Expert Settings:
http://www.reely.com/darren/Guides/iMov ... %20003.png

What format did it say there when you exported the first time? If it looked exactly like that (i.e. H.264 and all those settings) and the only thing you did was change the quality slider to Best, then the reason you had problems with the image quality was because the bitrate was too low for H.264 to encode without introducing that noise. Normally H.264 can deal with it correctly, if you use something other than Quicktime to do it. Quicktime's implementation of H.264 is pretty crippled, so you'd need to raise the bitrate value to compensate for it (or maybe put it on Automatic, although I don't know what method that uses to determine the data rate). Still, for contest submission purposes, you'd have to check if they accept H.264 files.

To encode H.264 with better quality, take a look at X● (note: requires OS X 10.5; the output also requires something like VLC to playback, or Perian if you still want to use Quicktime):
http://xdot.command-q.org/

In addition, that's the dropdown you'd be using to select a different format (like Uncompressed or Animation).

I didn't want any of that pixelation, of course, since I hope to enter it in this AMV contest, so I next tried using a compression setting called Full Quality, which basically means the movie is ripped at pretty much the same quality it appears in the movie maker itself. The finished Quicktime movie came out at 640x680 in a .dv file, and although the file size is huge, the quality is fantastic-- little to no pixelation at all. Maybe that's because the format isn't as stretched out like it might have been at 720x480, now that I think about it.

Anyway, I think we sorta deviated from my initial question. Since I have a movie that is at the quality I want it to be, and I'm no longer concerned about pixelation, I just want to make sure that it'll be screened okay in the format that it's in.

Well, you exported it as DV, so you'll need to check if the contest allows submissions in DV. If they don't, then you have to compress it to a different format.

I'm also slightly confused because it says that the format is 720x480, but the size is 640x480. Here's a screenshot of the info as it appears in Quicktime, which might help to clarify some things: http://s228.photobucket.com/albums/ee15 ... eoinfo.png

I'm assuming that it's a case of aspect flagging, the same method as used on DVD. There's a 4:3 flag set in the file and Quicktime resizes from 720x480 to 640x480 on playback.