Aspect Ratios! (880x480 Brain Pain)

[JD_Lord1]

I honestly can't tell if you're confusing PAR and DAR. Why, exactly, are you trying to export in 720x480 in the first place?

I couldn't tell you the difference but in general I was trying to re-size to square pixels to edit and then after editing return it to the original DVD aspect ratio/size. I don't care what the size/ratio is for online, but for most contests it seems that they ask for 720x480 resolution... and I thought this meant with a 16:9 ratio which is what I thought DVD footage was. I guess I thought that the 16:9 part was supposed to stretch 720x480 to make it appear as if it was 848x480 square pixels (in my case I thought 880 was correct).

What you have done is this:
Crop to 714x464
Scale to 880x480

So basically by cropping and scaling I got the footage to the aspect ratio of whatever 714x464 was? I think my main reason for up scaling to 480 is because, again, it seems most contests don't usually take stuff smaller than this. Obviously a mistake

Sorry for the double post, but to answer your question from your original post, I think you have misconceptions about how aspect ratios, scaling, and cropping relate. I would be happy to explain further if you ask.

You can probably tell by my response to Bashar that indeed I am confused. I think I'm starting to figure it out but if there is something that I am obviously missing please feel free to fill me in.

Seriously, thanks for the help!

[Cannonaire]

This old post, specifically the part in the spoiler tag, might clarify some things concerning how DVDs work for you: http://www.animemusicvideos.org/forum/v ... 2#p1350912

I do not use those resize lines often these days though. In your NLE, you can set the properties to the correct PAR (Pixel Aspect Ratio) for each of your source clips and it will automatically stretch the footage as required to maintain correct image geometry, regardless of how you have cropped. This is probably the best way to handle things, and it lets you mix sources with completely different ARs and still get a sane output. Just remember that your NLE will have properties for individual source clips as well as properties for the project as a whole.

For example, say you have a project where you want to mix 16:9 and 4:3 footage and end up with a coherent video with square pixels at 640x480. No problem! You can keep all of your sources at 720x480 for editing too! Just set your project to 640x480 and 1:1 PAR. When you import your source clips, set the properties for all the 4:3 footage to 4:3 (there should be a preset, but if in doubt you can always use the AR calc we linked you) and set all your 16:9 footage to 16:9. You will have to use panning/cropping in your NLE to get rid of black bars/empty space, but you have to do that anyway if you are mixing standard and widescreen sources.

[JD_Lord1]

Thanks again, the link helps a lot! And I will definitely be consulting these posts before making my next vid.