Flash Aspect ratio work area set-ups, what do YOU suggest???

Good afternoon ALL,

I have finally driven myself insane with this and now I need help to clear things up. While reading tutorials upon tutorials and explanations and various suggestions on the RIGHT way to set up your Flash work area for an animated piece intended for transfer to DVD, I think I took in SOOOOOO much info that I made myself confused.

CAN SOMEONE PLEASE INFORM ME OF THE CORRECT WAY TO SET UP FOR DVD, Please.

I am beginning production on SEVERAL animated pieces, 2 of which are intended for future animation festivals and the others will be INTENDED for DVD. Now I know not everyone owns a widescreen TV (I most def do not....) but I would like to present my upcoming work as professional and high quality as I can, Like we ALL WANT and NEED to do. So my MAIN question is:
What do YOU recommend for HQ video/sound output from/through Flash?
I've read through about the differences between NTSC, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DV, AVI and I really do not know what to go with. I would like to see what the MAJORITY has to say.

Any help would be GREATLY APPRECIATED, I look forward to any and all responses, and I can't wait to show off some NEW work to the Channel Frederator community, you guys have been GREAT, and keep up the AWESOME work. I hope to be able to finally post some production work in the very near future as well, would love to know what you guys think.

Thanks again,
The Ambitious Animator
Koy J. Campbell

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Permalink Reply by Andy Linke on April 9, 2008 at 3:39pm: Koy,
Now I am definitely no expert on this subject, but my understanding is that the standard for television in the US is NTSC. Now I don't know how this changes with widescreen HD televisions, I'm actually curious myself, but I think I would go with NTSC. I always thought that MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 were ways to compress your files for output, again I could be wrong because I am no expert. And I believe that AVI is a type of file like a .mov file is for quicktime. I have no idea what DV is. I must reiterate that I am no expert so if anyone else can tell me if I'm right or wrong that would be great.

Based on my knowledge I would say if your making it for a DVD I would use the NTSC, if your submitting for the web I would compress it using Mpeg-4. If anyone can confirm or refute my info it would be greatly appreciated on my end as well. Things like this get awfully confusing some times.

Hope this helps, and hope others have some input.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Kyoshi on April 12, 2008 at 1:26pm: Although not very knowledgeable on the subject Ntsc D1 should work or 4:3 ratio... Best bet it to finalize format in final cut or after effects.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Frame Damage on April 12, 2008 at 1:34pm: I do flash work for broadcast in NTSC and we use 720x540 as our document size in flash. The reason is slightly confusing but...

NTSC is actually 720x480 but your computer has 'square pixels' while a television has 'rectangular pixels'. So if you want something to look right on a television (standard-def not hi-def) then you need to use 720x540.

For an example of square/rectangular pixels, go into photoshop, create a new document and look at the presets. There is one for NTSC D1 Square pixels. It's 720x540. If you just pick the NTSC DV option it will turn on Pixel Aspect Ratio Correction which basically simulates rectangular pixels on your monitor.

Make sense?; ▶ Reply to This