Hi Angela,

Four by three or four to three is the aspect ratio: four parts the longer, horizontal side of the image, three parts the shorter, vertical side. You probably have 16:9 aspect ratio video if your TV station doesn't like it that way; it's a wider picture.

I see two principal options for you:

(1) Sacrifice the sides of your video to make the middle part of the 16:9 picture fill the entire 4:3 screen or

(2) Have the 16:9 picture fill only part of the 4:3 screen with empty/black stripes at the top and bottom, which is the traditional way of showing wide screen flicks on TV.

In either case, you need to click on the aspect ratio button at the very top menu in the Edit module, to the left of the cogwheel icon, to switch from 16:9 to 4:3.

For option (2) above, you're done.

For option (1) above, use the Modify button to open the PiP Designer windows and draw the top and the bottom of the picture to the edge of screen.

I think you need to produce/render the video at 720×576 pixels although this is not really 4:3. I am not exactly sure about the most convenient output format. If I were you, I would try samples in different formats for the TV to choose from if possible.

Good luck…

Jirka

Hi, thanks Jirka. I am not able to watch the show because it will air in a different city. That is why I am so concerned to get it right. I don't want a blurry version if it gets stretched or condensed. So, which option do you think I should choose? Many perspective clients will see it and has to look GREAT!

The USA standard is NTSC, which is 720x480, however I am surprised at the request for 4:3 NTSC 640x480. HP Envy Phoenix/4thGen i7-4770(4@3.4GHz~turbo>3.9)
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Barry, the show is on public access, they are behind the times....thanks.

Quote: Barry, the show is on public access, they are behind the times....thanks.

Angela, Hi!

Your comment gets in ahead of mine, obviously this public assess(community) station is still transmitting an analogue signal, and that most certainly is behind the times! The best option is clearly, as Jirka, explained, Option 2(the effect created is generally referred to as "Letterbox" but it will render your content compliant with the needs of this station you're submitting to). Don't forget to keep a copy of the work in its original form.

Cheers.

Neil.

Thanks guys, I appreciate it very much.

Hi again,

I wasn't sure about the NTSC resolution or had the time to find out about it. I am not perfectly sure now either. Trial and error might work the best if someone at the TV station end can provide feedback. Barry should be right suggesting 720×480 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/480i).

One additional thought: on top of the two options I suggested, you could consider option three: moving the sides towards the screen center distorting the picture like your avatar here, rather than the top and bottom outwards, in the PiP Designer.

The letterbox solution is probably the best though, in my opinion.

One more thing to know or realize: PowerDirector has the TV Safe Zone feature you can enable or disable using the rectangle icon below preview in the PiP Designer window. This is because the old vacuum picture tubes made of glass may have been adjusted in a manner actually hiding the picture edges so the TV Safe Zone is what everybody was presumably always able to see while the outer part was not guaranteed. This is understandably of minor importance now as you can expect most people will watch even this old format on new TV sets with LCD panels, plasma displays, or similar truly digital viewing devices.

It could be more important to know what file formats and codecs the TV station can accept but I would image the old equipment is at the broadcasting side only and they can basically use a computer to feed the airing channel…

Public access stations in some US markets don't accept "letterbox" formats. It's a idiosyncrasy, but that's what it is, they assume that US viewers on 4:3 TV's would be disadvantaged if presented with a format that doesn't use fully their screen. Politics if you want...
Also, because they are sending this over digital cable, they can run square pixels, so the 640x480 might be true (instead of standard 704x480 that leads to non-square pixels).

So OP needs to shoot the program in that format to have full quality.
Also, for commercial work OP must be aware that she needs to submit the files in WMV format. MP2, MP4 are not to be used commercially with CL software because licensing issues.

Hi!

Seems to me American viewing audiences might be expecting a tiny bit too much! This is a small "public access"(what we in Australia would call "community") station that would have to "scrounge" bits of equipment from here and there in order to kit out their studios and such. Would it really "kill" a viewer if he/she had to watch content on his big, flashy 16:9 LCD or other type of screen, just because the image did not fill out the entire width & height of the screen? Luckily, Quite a lot of these sets have tuners that can receive analogue signals so, for the moment, small community stations, like the one Angela is contributing to, can continue to operate, and if they require content to be in 4:3 aspect ratio, and should that require the digitally-shot content from Angela to be reformatted to suit(letterboxed), then so be it!

As an aside, our national broadcaster is currently screening early episodes of the British cop show "The Bill" and also episodes of the Angela Lansbury, murder mystery series, "Murder She Wrote" in their mid-afternoon schedules. These old shows were made for analogue 4:3 aspect ratio screens, so black bars sit either side of the image on our screen, Big deal! Fans of these shows will still watch them regardless. So if you're intending to submit content, as Angela123 is doing, and if its a small community station(public access), just help them along by formatting your video to comply with their needs.

Cheers!

Neil.

Quote: Hi, my local provider tells me they don't accept HD, it must be " 4 x 3" but I don't know what these numbers mean.... Can anyone tell me the steps to produce this "size" so that I can upload it through their ftp? Many thanks. Happy Passover.

Hello Angela,

4x3 is the Aspect ratio of the image on screen. What you need to ask your station is for full details of the format of the video for them to use.

Details such as, Aspect ratio, Pixel dimensions (720x480 maybe), Video Format (Type of video, MP4, MPG, WMV, etc).

There are so many current formats for Video now you need the exact specification to know what to give them.

A good safe bet would likely be MPEG-2 720x480 @ about 8Mbps in 4x3 ratio in NTSC (29.97 fps). known as Standard Definition.

There is a profile in Powerdirector that is exactly that. MPEG-2 DVD HQ 720 x 480/60i (8Mbps).

If you are using 16x9 video you will have a letter box video, black bars on the top and bottom of the picture.

You need to ask if letter box is OK. Carl312: Windows 10 64-bit 8 GB RAM,AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz,ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB,240GB SSD,two 1TB HDs.

Carl has summed it very clearly. You have the tools to easily provide them what they want, they just have to be clear on what that is. HP Envy Phoenix/4thGen i7-4770(4@3.4GHz~turbo>3.9)
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Thank you contributors for trying to help me. My non-tech program person simply tells me "it must be 4 x 3" and gives me this attached sheet. But my question is, WHICH format is best, since the film is presently h.264.

I don't think a black box is a nice enough presentation... but I don't want a squished look. HELP! Thanks again.

Hi Angela,

Interestingly (or confusingly) enough, the document you attached shows 16:9 aspect ratio as well. It's thus hard to say if the lists of video (codec) and file formats supported therein are of any value.

I would say the solution lies beyond this forum. If I were you, I would probably just try M2TS or MKV container under H.264 codec (AVC) at 720×480 pixels resolution, 60i = 60 frames per second, interlaced (this last parameter is unless you want to create custom profile for progressive frames: 30p should be good). I still imagine you would hear back from the TV guys if your video didn't work before showing it to the community. Hopefully, they would be specific enough for you to know what needs changing.

If you don't want the black stripes (letterbox) or distorted proportions, you're left with what I referred to as option 1: cutting off the sides. You may want to preview this option to see if something important is lost.

Kind regards…

Jirka

Perhaps you could contact someone else who submits videos to that station to see what format they use. Regards,
Dan
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So Carl, I am presently "finalizing" as the mpeg 2 for now, since the provide is already set for "dvd" but I hope it will create an FTP transferable file since the TV station doesn't accept DVD's.
I wish they were a little more communicative over there....
Jirka, I am glad it wasn't just me who found the info contradictory.
Dan, unfortunately I don't know other producers there.
Thank you everyone for your suggestions. This forum helps make PD even greater!

mpeg 2 produces just sound, no images.

I believe that the win 10 media player has no mpeg-2 decoder by default so just view the produced file with a different player like vlc or in the media library of PD14 itself.

wow Tomasc that explains it! I always wondered why my peg2 never had images...and, I didn't know that Pd14 had that creative workaround. Many thanks.

Quote: Thank you contributors for trying to help me. My non-tech program person simply tells me "it must be 4 x 3" and gives me this attached sheet. But my question is, WHICH format is best, since the film is presently h.264.

I don't think a black box is a nice enough presentation... but I don't want a squished look. HELP! Thanks again.

Hi, Angela!

You won't get a "squished" look, but I'm afraid you're stuck with black vertical bars either side of the image if you happen to be able to view your production through the station you're submitting to, as they are only transmitting analogue, and analogue is firmly tied to 4:3 aspect ratio. As it happens, a lot of flat-screen sets have digital AND analogue TV reception capabilities so you'be be able to see your work broadcast if you lived in that station's service area, but because of the analogue standard, them ol' black bars are the price one must pay..... such is the "nature of the beast", I'm afraid!

Cheers!

Neil.