Creating Cartoons - TV Resolution???

[FLASHPULSE]

Ok, I plan to start making a cartoon with KM and I know tv's come in different resolution but I'm pretty sure there's a certain resolution that cartoonist use when making cartoons. Most tv's being in the 4:3 aspect, I thought I had seen some where for U.S. tv viewing is some where around 640X480 but need to know the exact size.

My plan is to make a 30 minute cartoon in KM then convert it so it can be burned to DVD.

Any help would be great, thanks. :)

[docree]

Hey, flashpulse
I'm after the same kind of television use.
The folks at Flicker Labs have a good faq (and offer services) on flash to video.
http://www.flickerlab.com/flashtovideo/
DocRee

[FLASHPULSE]

Thanks for the tip docree!:D

Ok, it sounds like 640X480 is a safe aspect to use being that it is already at a 4:3 ratio. They also suggest if making a cartoon fully from flash to use 24 FPS even though tv uses 30 FPS, (something about 2's that I really didn't get into yet.

[w.brants]

Actually the size is a little bit bigger.
The maximum size of a dvd movie is 720 x 480 for NTSC (US) and 720 x 576 for PAL (most european countries).

24 fps is the frame rate for dvd film (most films are shot at 24 fps).
dvd video is 25 fps for PAL and 29.97 fps for NTSC.

[FLASHPULSE]

Originally posted by w.brants
Actually the size is a little bit bigger.
The maximum size of a dvd movie is 720 x 480 for NTSC (US) and 720 x 576 for PAL (most european countries).

24 fps is the frame rate for dvd film (most films are shot at 24 fps).
dvd video is 25 fps for PAL and 29.97 fps for NTSC.

You are correct but 720X480 is not a 4:3 aspect ratio therefor leaving black bars on the top and bottom of the screen as most dvd's do being in 16:9. I prefer to use the 4:3 being that most tv's are not widescreen. Thanks for the info though. :)

[hermie]

NTSC resolution is 720x486. With square pixels, this is not 4:3... but with the rectangular pixels on a TV, it is.

If you make 640x480 on a computer, and you put that into video software to edit for TV viewing, either (1) the image will appear horizontally compressed, or (2) you'll have to stretch the image to fit, and that means you're not using the 720 pixels of resolution available to get the best quality video image.

This is explained better, with pictures, on that flickerlab site mentioned above... check it out!

What's recommended is producing the computer animation in 720x540. This is 4:3. When finished, export the still images to 720x486 resolution... they'll look squished, but when those square pixels are viewed as rectangular pixels on a video monitor, it will appear correct.

I'm currently producing a Flash animation for TV... and I've done it in 720x540 resolution. But now I'm stuck. How do I squish the Flash animation to 720x486? If I change the document settings from 540 to 486, it just chops off the bottom of my animation. Is there a way to change the resolution disproportionately, before exporting? Or am I going to have to export my 720x540 images (frames) and use Photoshop on each one individually? (I hope not.)

[FLASHPULSE]

Thanks for the response hermie.

Awhile back I had recorded a video clip that was 320X240 on to a cd in vcd format and viewed it on my dvd player. Well I just went back to view it again to make sure there wasn't any streching, and there wasn't. Everything looked normal. So this being half the size of 640X480, I would think that I should get the same results but with better resolution.

I used VCD Easy to make this video which anyone can do that has a CD-R or CD-RW drive. VCD Easy now is no longer freeware, so if you want to test this yourself you might want to find one that is.

When I get some more CD-R disk I will test different resolutions to see the difference. If anyone here does this before I do, please post it here.

***Make sure your dvd player is capable of playing VCD's or SVCD's before the actual burning process. This will save you time and a disk if your dvd player is not capable of this.***

[FLASHPULSE]

I was able to find the last freeware version of VCDEasy 1.1.5.2 here
http://www.espacefr.com/winmedia/index.html?page=video4

The site is not in english but the software is.

[hermie]

Oh, I see... recording onto a VCD, all that is taken care of automatically.

With my project, I'm outputting each frame as a still image, and then the editor assembles them in Avid (or whatever editing software they're using). With this, the rectangular video pixels are still an issue. If anyone has any ideas regarding my above question, they would be most helpful. :)

[w.brants]

Hi Hermie,

I think the easiest option for your problem is to create a new KM project with the correct size and import the 720 x 486 flash movie as an object. Then rescale this object to the right size and play it.
It should have the right size then.

Wilbert

[FLASHPULSE]

Hey hermie, what do you mean by this?

"Oh, I see... recording onto a VCD, all that is taken care of automatically."

[hermie]

I was just speaking about the rectangular pixels vs. square pixels issue. In reading this thread, and thinking about my current problem, I lost track of the fact that you're outputting to a disc. I've never done that. My experience has been with importing graphic stills into video editing software, and in that case the pixel shape issue can wreak havoc.

But now I've learned that software for creating VCDs can take a 640x480 cartoon and automatically make it look correct when played on a 720x486 video screen. That's all I meant... I'm sorry if anything else was read into it.

[FLASHPULSE]

Oh that's ok, just wondering what video editing software do you use? Been looking at a few and not sure what's good for the best price. Some can be very high in cost.

[hermie]

I use Abode Premiere, but an older version... 5.1c. I'm not doing anything for broadcast quality, so that works fine. In fact, most consumer-level video editing programs are pretty good now. If you're going to be doing cartoons, importing movies or stills you've made via Flash, you should check into what file formats a specific editing program can import.

[johnie]

Another thing to consider is what format is your taget format? How important is the resolution and clarity to your target audience.


If your target format is VHS then if you have a Video card that outputs as TV Out (One can be obtained as cheaply as $15 or if you want to go all out you can get the ATI AIW Radeon VE sells for about $120-$130 http://mirror.ati.com/products/radeon7500/aiwve/index.html and that includes Pinnacle Video Studio- a decent video editing program to start on) then you simply need to plug the TV and Audio Out from the Computer to the Video and Audio in on the VCR. This is a very cheap way to do this.

There is some fairly good freeware and Free Software for making and Editing Video. It all depends on your needs. If you need something just to make simple Linear edits then Virtual DUB http://www.virtualdub.org/ would fit the bill. Likewise MGI/Roxio Video Wave http://www.roxio.com/en/products/videowave_movie_creator/index.jhtml is very afordable.

The other method is to burn to VCD then play that in a DVD player tro transfer it to VHS. This site has a lot of freeware/shareware posted along with reviews that will allow you to make VCD or DVD http://www.dvdrhelp.com/

If your format is designed for DVD players you can leave it in VCD however remeber that VCD is at VHS quality. If you are going for DVD you might as well pony up and go for the real DVD.

[FLASHPULSE]

Nice tips there johnie! :)

I have a question though. I used a freeware program to make a swf into an avi ( http://www.pizzinini.net/?category=8&item=37 )which worked fine but when I tried to convert the avi to a mpeg, it lost it's original color and made it with less colors. Any tips on this?

[johnie]

What tool are you using to make the MPEG?

[FLASHPULSE]

Originally posted by johnie
What tool are you using to make the MPEG?

I have used about everyone avi to mpeg converter out there. Been downloading and testing these converters but found one that does ok called avi2vcd http://www.mnsi.net/~jschlic1/ but it makes a few glitches in the video.

[FLASHPULSE]

Hey hermie, this might solve your problem.

"I'm currently producing a Flash animation for TV... and I've done it in 720x540 resolution. But now I'm stuck. How do I squish the Flash animation to 720x486? If I change the document settings from 540 to 486, it just chops off the bottom of my animation. Is there a way to change the resolution disproportionately, before exporting? Or am I going to have to export my 720x540 images (frames) and use Photoshop on each one individually? (I hope not.)"

In KoolMoves, if you made an animation 720X540, save it as a .fun file.

Select "File" then "New" and make the area 720X486.

Create a movie clip, select "File" then "Insert Movie..." and open the .fun file you saved at 720X540.

Select "Main movie".

Then with the "Transform" button, select "Scale" then scale from bottom until the 540 becomes 486.

This will make it looked squished as you know but will look good when you view it on tv as we had talked about. Hope this helps you. :)

[FLASHPULSE]

OK, after many test. I have found, so far, the best software to convert an SWF to AVI then to MPEG for recording to VCD, SVCD and DVD.

From reading many topics about the MPEG format, I have learned that this format was not intended for computer generated graphics. Therefor, making it even harder to find software that could do a decent job at this.

Here is two utilities that did the job best:
1.) SWF2AVI found Here (http://www.pizzinini.net/?category=8&item=37&ref=swf2avi) Freeware
2.) AVI to VCD SVCD DVD Converter found Here (http://www.zealotsoft.net/) Shareware $19

AVI to VCD SVCD DVD Converter did poorly on VCD but alot better when converting to SVCD (although with noticable video noise). It did it's best when converting to DVD format.

SWF to AVI was perfect but when converting to MPEG, this was a harder task. After trying every AVI to MPEG converting software, This is the best I could find. If anyone happens to stumble on one that does better, let me know please.