In case you haven’t heard the News: The word pixel is a short hand term for “picture element” and pixels of various shapes create a video display. Picture display settings must match image source configurations to avoid image distortion.

Finally Found a Home

So what does it all mean? Well we have finally found a home in the ATSC (Advanced Television Standards Committee), the industry group that defined the high definition (HD) video specification and the sooner everyone is switched over to HD video the better (which by the time I get this finished will have already officially happened). Because HD always uses square pixels in the final display format (not always true in the various acquisition formats), most of these issues (image distortion due to inconsistency between source and display pixel aspect rations) will go away. There are basically only two consumer frame sizes (1920x1080 and 1280x720), and both are widescreen aspect ratio, so creating and displaying video in these formats will be easy once standard definition analog video has gone the way of the woolly mammoth.

Of course, technology marches on and the next big buzz, buzz, buzz is always around the corner. In fact there is already trouble in paradise, as it is rumored there are experimental displays capable of wider widescreen aspect ratios, and higher screen resolutions (2K and 4K images, in the vernacular); I also mention this because a discussion about rumors of things big and wide seems strangely appropriate for a blog underscored by references to a certain pop icon. Anyway, we still have quite a way to go, but for the time being, HD is our baby, and we can do it all for our baby, to coin a phrase. Okay I’m reaching pretty far now…go to Plan B - here’s another chart!

How to Keep it Beatin’

Armed with this knowledge, you can keep the heart of rock and roll beating. The trick is to make your display match your source material. Although some people may prefer to watch video stretched or squished, keeping the letterbox or pillarbox off the screen, I prefer to see the video perfectly matched to a display device in the proper ratio. The problem is that today’s content is all over the place. Even though most currently available TVs are 16:9, there is a plethora of legacy 4:3 content on TV, and on stored media like DVD or VHS tapes. Most importantly, if you are creating video for business like I do here at Quicksilver (marketing, training, etc.), you want to be extra sure that the video looks right. I recommend thinking about aspect ratio from the earliest stages in the production process. Nowadays, whether shooting/posting in standard or high def, I would produce everything in the 16:9 aspect ratio unless there is a really good reason not to. Also make sure your aspect ratio is correct over all the deliverable formats. If the video will playback from DVD and a computer file (like WMV or Quicktime), two different videos must be created for each format.

Naturally, setting your AV gear up to display properly is also imperative to how it looks. And there are many places where a setting can screw up the ratio (and other parts of the picture as well), for instance, your DVD player, TV, computer, and cable box all potentially have settings that can affect the picture. As far as my preferred settings - for regular old television, if you subscribe to HD channels, I suggest you leave your TV in widescreen mode and have it throw up pillarboxes on 4:3 material where necessary. Some TVs and cable or satellite tuners have modes that dynamically change the ratio depending on the source material. I personally find this annoying because it switches continuously during commercials, and it sometimes interprets wrong. If you are not sure if your setting is correct (it can be difficult to tell with certain kinds of content), look for a program that contains a perfect circle. If the circle is an oval, then your settings are wrong, simple as that.

So in this not-so-perfect world, I say good luck and feel free to be square – it’s hip you know! Here is one last chart for the square…

Don’t Make Me Do It!

If you have stuck with me for all three parts, I’m happy to be stuck with you; therefore I have a $20 gift card waiting for the first person who correctly identifies all of the Huey Lewis references contained in the three parts of this blog. Enter your response as a blog comment and feel free to ask questions if you need clarification. Good luck!

Jeff Maslouski is manager of post production and is truly capable of putting a room into a hypnotic trance with his excruciatingly precise explanations of all things technical.

In case you haven’t heard the News:  The word pixel is a short hand term for “picture element” and pixels of various shapes create a video display.

If This Is It?

Not all pixels are created equal, in shape that is. Confusion arises because some pixels are square in shape, while others are rectangular. Computer displays always employ square pixels, but video (such as on a TV or a DVD) usually employs rectangular shaped pixels. The ratio between the width and height of the rectangle is called the pixel aspect ratio. Square pixels are said to have a 1:1 pixel aspect ratio, that is the height and width are equal. However, there are many video standards with different pixel shapes, both in the rapidly diminishing analog world and the new frontier of digital video. For example, one commonly used standard definition acquisition format – known as D1 or DV format, can represent either full screen (4:3) video or widescreen (16:9) using the same screen pixel dimensions (720x480). The pixel aspect ratio for 4:3 video is 0.9, which creates a tall, skinny pixel; with a slight change of heart, the same pixels interpreted with a 1.2 aspect ratio makes a short fat rectangle that is used for a widescreen video (called anamorphic). In order to see the forest for the trees, the device onto which the video is displayed must be set properly to know how to interpret these pixels. The terms full screen and widescreen are common consumer electronics formats that relate to the aspect ratio of a television screen, which brings me to an important point.

Sometimes Bad is Bad

Another perplexing factor is that the “frame aspect ratio” of a display is really independent of the pixel aspect ratio of a particular piece of video. The frame aspect ratio of a television, no matter what kind, is either full screen 4:3 ratio, or widescreen 16:9 ratio. Nearly all modern LCD and plasma flat panel TVs are widescreen, having a 16:9 frame aspect ratio. Widescreen ratio is the same or similar to the origination formats for high definition video and film, and really makes for a superior viewing experience (great for Sports IMHO), but, not everyone has a widescreen TV yet. Computer displays are still available in 4:3 formats, but most manufacturers are moving aggressively into widescreen (actually most computer widescreens have a 16:10 ratio…I can hear your collective groans of confusion and frustration, you need a couple days off to digest this right?).

Walkin’ on a Thick Line

Actually more like bars than lines…I’m talking black bars around the edges of a video. Everyone has probably viewed a program where black bars were added to the top and bottom of the picture (letterboxed), or to the sides (pillar boxed). This is necessary when displaying video in an (frame) aspect ratio that is different than the source aspect ratio. If you are showing a widescreen video on a fullscreen display, the total size is reduced, leaving empty black nothingness at the top and bottom. Conversely, when fullscreen video is displayed on a widescreen display, black bars appear on the sides, as the smaller picture is centered on the larger screen. And then there is the most awesome situation where a letterbox has already been imbedded into a 4:3 video and when you put it into a widescreen display, you get a black box around the whole video – it’s like watching a TV at the end of a long dark hallway!
Of course, different manufacturers have come up with other ways to deal with ratio conversion, including a number of zooming and stretching algorithms that distort the video in different ways so as to get rid of the bars. Take away the keys because this drives me crazy, especially when a fullscreen video is stretched side-to-side and everybody looks fat (or at least much fatter than they are in real life!). The opposite is true when squeezing widescreen video onto a 4:3 screen and everything is squished. It frequently looks similar to how things (reportedly) look after ingesting certain hallucinogenic compounds, leading me to conclude that I want a new drug!

Picture This

When viewing video on a computer, there are some different considerations. Since computers always display square pixels, everything should always look correct right? First, I have seen many a computer screen that has been forced into the wrong aspect ratio. There are a number of reasons this might happen, but most computer graphics cards should be able to display both widescreen and fullscreen ratios, you just have to set your resolution correctly. Also, video that originated in a non-square aspect ratio needs to be properly converted to a square pixel ratio (which requires changing the video dimensions) or it will not display correctly. You don’t have look too hard on the Internet to find video that is improperly formatted, crappy video is especially prolific on the web! But me, I believe in love and pristine video, do you? Even if you are hard at play, take some time to figure this just take some time to figure this stuff out and you too will have faith in the power of pristine video.

Here is a handy guide showing how various aspect ratios look on different displays.

Jeff Maslouski is manager of post production and is truly capable of putting a room into a hypnotic trance with his excruciatingly precise explanations of all things technical.

If you have ever been annoyed by stretched or squished video, or if you can’t stand those black boxes that take up half your TV screen, this article explains why this happens and how you can fix it. And if you pay attention, you might pick up some pop music trivia as well.

Is it Hip 2 B []?

“In '87, Huey Lewis and the News released, Fore!, their most accomplished album. I think their undisputed masterpiece is "Hip to be Square", a song so catchy, most people probably don't listen to the lyrics. But they should, because it's not just about the pleasures of conformity, and the importance of trends, it's also a personal statement about the band itself.” --  Patrick Bateman

I couldn’t agree more! It is hip to be square and conformist (just like all my friends), at least when geeking out over video standards. Especially when pondering one of my personal favorite subjects - square and rectangular pixels. The current proliferation of analog and digital video and computer formats offers little hope that anyone but the uber-geekiest among us can keep afloat in this sea of shape-shifting bits. Fortunately for us who are workin’ for a livin’ in the video world, people get it wrong all the time (even “professionals”) and need to be schooled. Improper or incomplete understanding of pixels can taint the presentation of even the most perfectly polished production. So here is an overview on this most elusive agent of confusion - I’ll try to keep it short and sweet.

Pixels are the Heart and Soul of digital video

The word pixel is a short hand term for “picture element.” In computer/digital video terms, it is the smallest bit of information that can be displayed by a computer’s graphics card or a TV’s display technology (LCD, plasma, projection, CRT, etc.). In general, more pixels equal higher resolution, which correlates to higher (potential) image quality. The number of pixels on a screen varies according to the resolution settings. For instance, if your computer display is set to a resolution of 1280x1024 (a common format known as SXGA) your computer has 1,310,720 individually addressable dots arranged in a grid with the above dimensions. Although these dots are almost too small for us to see, they combine to make the pictures you see on the screen. Even though we think of them as dots, they are actually small square points.

It should be noted that pixels generally refer to the resolution of a digital display, whereas traditional analog video resolution is defined by the number of vertical lines – 480 lines for NTSC (National Television Standards Committee) video and 576 lines for PAL (the European video standard). Although the standards reference a certain picture width that corresponds to a certain number of pixels, these are really just samples of the analog signal that are gunned onto a screen one line at a time (actually this is a simplified definition since most analog video is interlaced, meaning only half the lines are displayed at one time; but that is a blog for a different day).

Check back next week to learn more about how pixels impact video quality.

Jeff Maslouski is manager of post production and is truly capable of putting a room into a hypnotic trance with his excruciatingly precise explanations of all things technical.