Page 560 - ProShow Producer Manual

560 20. Creating Video Output

Display Options for Video Files

The delicate part of video file creation is finished. With the Format
Settings chosen you can move on to the Display settings.

The Aspect Ratio option you have here is slightly different from the Aspect
Ratio you have used for the rest of your show. What you’re configuring
here is the pixel aspect ratio. The short explanation of this is that pixels will
be different shapes and sizes based on the aspect ratio that is selected. This
is independent of resolution.

The rule of thumb to follow here is that you want your Aspect Ratio to
match what you use in your show. If you make a 16:9 show, use 16:9 as the
Aspect Ratio for the video. The new option here is called Square Pixels.
Square Pixels doesn’t adjust the shape of the pixels to a certain aspect
ratio. Instead, it renders the video on a 1:1 basis with the resolution.

As an example, consider this:

The resolution of a normal DVD video is 720 x 480. This is based
on the resolution an aspect ratio of 16:9. If you’re going to render
a DVD video at a ratio of 4:3, the pixels are adjusted in size so that
what is actually a 720 x 480 video doesn’t look distorted when
viewed on a 4:3 screen. If you were to use Square Pixels with this
video and watch it on a 4:3 screen the image would appear
squished and distorted because the Square Pixels keep the video
set to the size based solely on resolution – 3:2.