What's with the 720x480 size after encoding?

Thanks for SDMacuser's very detailed instructions in another thread (Can I make a DVD with multiple slideshows) - I saved the entire thing as a .pdf!

After I finished my movie, having had to deal with shots taken by four people with different cameras, settings, grainy or pixelated images, etc, etc, I decided to do a test just to see if different processes/settings would produce a better movie/image quality than others. I created a very short (3 images, all in different sizes and quality) movie and:

1. made one slideshow in Photo to Movie - specified size as 640x480/4:3 and exported it once as a Quicktime movie (expert settings, H.264, size 640x480, best quality). Second export for test purposes: directly to Toast (no options to customize settings available);

2. created a new project (DV, 4:3) in iMovie and imported the .mov file from Photo to Movie;

3. created a new project in iDVD and imported the iMovie project, settings 4:3 NTSC and "professional quality" and saved as disk image, and

4. created another project in iDVD ("best performance") and added a slideshow, dragging in the same 3 photos, saved as a disk image.

I then dragged each one into Toast and - finally (drum roll!) here is the question: every one of them showed up as "NTSC, *720 x 480*, 29.97 fps", etc.

Why would they all show as having been encoded at 720 x 480, which doesn't seem to be either 4:3 or 16:9, especially when I had specified 640x480 in Photo to Movie (if I specify a 720 width in Photo to Movie, the height automatically changes to 540) and specified 4:3 everywhere else? Two of the pictures were actually smaller than 640x480 and the third was 2048x1536.

I'm puzzled by this (odd?) size - is this something that iMovie and/or iDVD does or am I doing something to cause this?

15" 2.2GHz MBP 4GB RAM , 24" white 2.16GHz iMac 3 GB RAM, Mac OS X (10.4.11), LaCie d2 DVDRW, 2 LaCie ext HD (1 Quadra), Wacom tablet

Posted on May 4, 2009 1:30 PM

Reply
10 replies

May 6, 2009 1:08 PM in response to Serotonin

Now I'm really confused - I thought it was 720 x 540? (See SDMacuser's post I referenced.)

And I do realize there is a difference between computer monitor vs. TV, but I was talking about the size showing before burning (after encoding) - no matter what size I had specified, all of them showed as being 720 x 480 when dragged into Toast (again, before burning). I did burn a DVD with all of them on it and there was no difference between any of them at all when viewed on TV (no doubt because the encoding all made them the same size of 720 x 480).

May 8, 2009 12:58 AM in response to babowa

Generally speaking it's:

720x480 @ 29.97 fps for NTSC (or 23.976 for NTSC Film)

720x576 @ 25 fps for PAL

Anamorphic video formats (e.g 16:9 aspect) is accomplished either by (rarely) scaling the image down and including black pixels at the top and bottom of the image, or (usually) by the setting a flag which tells the DVD player to stretch the pixels horizontally, scaling the image and automatically adding black at top and bottom if needed.
_______________________
!http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/5186/scottdartve1.png!

May 8, 2009 9:58 AM in response to Cut'n Paste

Thanks; I'm making myself a note that it's 720 x 480, although after reading through numerous posts and articles, there is much conflicting information out there. In any case, I'm hoping that this was my last project in 4:3 - there is a new camera coming out from Canon which will shoot in HD and widescreen, so all I need to do is save my money and then worry about if iDVD has been fixed so it'll actually encode all of it in widescreen (which was a big problem in earlier versions).

This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

What's with the 720x480 size after encoding?

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.