Widescreen
TV in the UK All
new TV programmes in the UK are now broadcast in "letterbox"
or widescreen format. Unfortunately, this can still be a source
of confusion as can the issue of anamorphic. These notes are primarily for 2D animators working in the UK.
note: click on illustrations to enlarge them
The red area shows the shape of the standard 4 x 3 TV picture superimposed on a 12" animation field-chart (also known as a graticule). As you can see, they are not exactly the same shape, but they are close enough and we've lived with this discrepancy without problem for many years. Most cinema films were this shape until around the middle of the last century. Screen shapes are described by a ratio, width to height. In this case, the actual ratio is 1.33:1 . This shape is more commonly referred to as "four by three", written 4 x 3 (that is 4 units wide by 3 units high). It's also sometimes referred to as 12 x 9.
Widescreen
(also referred to as letterbox) TV shape is 1.77:1 or 16 x 9. This
is close to the normal cinema screen shape of today (in the UK 1.85:1).
Work for TV in the UK now has to be delivered in widescreen. When
you work on a 12" field, the area that will be recorded to
tape is the blue area in Fig.
2. The
width of a 12" field animation remains the same, but in letterbox,
the height is just over a 9" field. This is the shape to base
all your artwork on.
For
analogue terrestrial broadcasts, the 14 x 9 compromise means that
both 16 x 9 and 4 x 3 viewers will receive the same green area in
Fig. 3.. This is where the real problems for you as a designer begin. In Fig. 3 above, the whole of the coloured area will be recorded to tape - that's the full 16 x 9 area. For the reasons I have just outlined, however, you really cannot be sure what any of your viewers are really going to see. You can be sure that the top and bottom edges of your picture will be seen pretty well by everyone, but the degree of cropping of the sides of the images can vary widely. The solution is to design for the full 16 x 9 shape, but allow for the possible cut-off that will occur on the sides of your pictures. The way to do this is shown in Fig. 4 remember: to see any picture more clearly, click on it to enlarge it.
As can be seen, cut-off can be severe when safe titling areas are allowed for. Until letterbox shaped TV sets become the only ones used, you will have to get used to compromising the framing of your animation, never putting anything important anywhere near the sides of your picture. As a very rough and ready guide, consider the safe title area within a 12 field on a traditional graticule as being at an 8.3 field. (That's roughly the green line in Fig. 4)
Anamorphic for SD (standard defintition)
Fig. 5
Most
clients will ask for work to be delivered in anamorphic format.
This involves taking an image such as in Fig. 5 and "squashing" it to make it
look like Fig.6. This
is necessary because all normal resolution tape formats record raw
images that are always 4 x 3. If you are using a digital ink and
paint bureau, it isn't your problem; there are no design considerations
to take into account other than preparing artwork letterbox shape
and allowing for the cut-offs at the sides as shown in Fig.4. You need know only to ask
the edit house or ink and paint bureau to supply the finished rushes
anamorphic - just blanking off the top and bottom of the image to
make it letterbox shape is not acceptable. Displaying Anamorphic If you have a video tape in anamorphic format that is going to be shown publicly, (such as an entry to a film festival), check with the organisers that their video projector can display anamorphic, particularly if the work is being shown abroad. I am advised by Video Europe that most video projectors are switchable but an old model may not be. Should this be the case, the only solution, unfortunately, is to have a non-anamorphic dupe tape run off with letterbox banding.
HD (High Definition) TV is becoming increasingly important and any new animated project should take this into account. The problems we have with SD above regarding 4x3 versus 16x9 are no longer a worry, since all HD work is delivered in letterbox 16x9 shape. You
should be aware that there is not just one HD standard for TV -
around the world are many variations in screen resolution, frame
rate and issues of interlace versus progressive scan versus sequential
field scan. Now you are sufficiently worried, here is the good news; the technical issues raised by high definition that beset live-action film makers are not really anything for animators to worry about. But please read on so that you can be aware of issues that may arise when you take on a project to be delivered in high definition. To be sure that you don't make any expensive mistakes, best advice is: don't do any production work until you have got your client to specify, in writing, the exact form in which your work is to be delivered. The
specification should tell you: 3 -
how you will deliver the animation, that is whether it is to be
on a video format like HDV or 35mm film negative etc. My advice
is: try to insist that you deliver the animation as bitmap file sequences
and not as tape or film media. This means that
you burn the sequences as numbered bitmap files on CDs or DVDs and
deliver these to the post-production house or editor(s). If they
want the work delivered as, say HDV tape, still do it as bitmap
sequences and have them transferred at a post-production house.
Don't think you can get away with using your HDV camcorder. have
it done professionally and allow for the cost of these transfers
when you are budgeting. At some
point, a client or other person involved may ask innocently about
whether you can provide progressive scan or interlaced. You will
need to explain to your client that animation is always delivered as progressive scan*. If the
finished production is to be delivered in something other than progressive
scan, the post production house will need to take care of this and
it really is not your problem. Once you are certain that a specific HD format is required and that the costs of any later changes to this will be borne by someone else, is it safe to proceed. If you
don't have a client or post production house to ask, use the following
specification: The
logic to this is that the resolution is the highest possible for
broadcast television use and will be for probably at least the next
20 years. If a lower resolution copy is needed, this is not difficult.
Indeed, many people in broadcasting insist that SD (standard definition)
material down-converted from original footage shot in HD looks much
better than material originated in SD. A further advantage to using this specification is that your work can be used without expensive conversion for cinema release. Interlace is not really an issue with animation, since it is not normal to use field rendering. One way to completely circumvent issues of interlace is simply to output your work as bitmap file sequences using recordable DVD media. Any facilities house with HD capability will then have no trouble in outputting to the required format. For testing animation in-house, you can of course consider working in lower resolution and only outputting at high resolution when you are ready for final rendering. *regarding interlace versus progressive scan: in fact, it is technically possible to output animation as an interlaced image and this is occasionally done for certain problematical scenes involving pans that look too juddery. It is also quite simple to output 3D cgi as interlaced, so it is not impossible to do so much as a pain - rather than get bogged down in pedantic arguments, you really are best advised to simply tell your clients that animation comes non-interlaced and leave it at that
OK,
you've read the above, you've bought the latest and fastest computers
to render the larger images and you are now ready to make future-proof
animation footage.....sorry, but there's yet another twist to the
tale!
If you are originating material on film, such as on a rostrum camera, design with Fig. 4 above in mind. The extra picture that will also get shot above and below when you use an open or Academy gate will be "lost" at the telecine stage. Film has a far greater resolution than broadcast video, so it is not necessary to shoot film through an anamorphic lens and the part of the picture that is thrown away does not lead to any discernible picture degradation when broadcast.
Shooting Video for Cinema Usage Reasonably
good results can be got from taking an anamorphic broadcast image
(720 pixels across) on Digi Beta or D1 and transferring to film
using facilities such as those at Cinesite. They use software to
interpolate the missing information when going from low (broadcast!)
resolution to a higher (cinema) resolution. Allow for a small amount
of extra cut-off at the top and bottom of picture; cinema shape
is 16.65 x 9 rather than 16 x 9. Things don't stand still, though and the future of digital cinema is most likely to be in 4K resolution which requires images approximately 4,000 pixels wide. Right now (Feb 2008), I would highly recommend you to use the 2K (1920 x 1080) pixel format for most work but to bear in mind that if ever you are to produce work for prestigious cinema release, you may well be asked to work at 4K. The overheads in rendering at higher resolutions are very great, particularly with 3D cgi, so you may well need to send your rendering to a "render farm" - a company who will take care of the rendering on your project using banks of dedicated computers. Probably the most extreme high resolution requirement you are likely to encounter is for Imax cinema, where a 6K image is normal - oh and you will need to double the number of frames if the film is going to be in stereo! Comparative Resolutions Ignoring Imax, the six most common resolutions you will encounter are given below in pixels. The more pixels you have to render, the slower your rendering times will be. 1 -
S35 (Super 35mm) movie film 4,100 x 3,100 Looking Ahead Analogue
transmissions will eventually cease and eventually the last 4 x
3 TV set will expire. 16 x 9 will then be the only shape to design
for. An added bonus is that the newer plasma, LCD and OLED etc.
flat-screens have little if any picture cut-off, so the problem
of safe areas will be less of an issue. These
notes were written by Jeff Goldner of Animation Post. Effort has
been made to check the veracity of statements made and the accuracy
of the illustrations, but no responsibility can be taken for the
results of actions taken based on them. Jeff Goldner Animation Post is a digital ink and paint service. © All material on this website copyright Jeff Goldner, except where otherwise attributed Reproduction of the written and graphical elements on this web page without express permission for personal use only is fine. Animation
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