Apple Motion 3 - Manual (Page 1213)

Appendix B Video and File Formats 1213
Using Square or Nonsquare Pixels When Creating Graphics
When you’re preparing to import graphics into Motion, it’s important to be aware of
the pixel aspect ratio you’re using and whether your project requires you to work with
square or nonsquare pixels.
Nonsquare pixels: Use this for standard definition projects in NTSC or PAL.
Square pixels: Use this for high definition projects, as well as multimedia video that
will be played back only on computers and doesn’t use any captured video footage.
Graphics created on a computer, whether scanned, painted, or rendered, look distorted
on a video monitor unless you account for the different pixel aspect ratio. Fortunately,
this is easy to do, since every nonsquare video frame size has an equivalent square
frame size that you can use to create your graphics.
To create graphics that look correct when output to video:
1 In your graphics application, create a frame size that’s the square pixel equivalent of the
video frame size you’re using.
See the chart below for equivalent sizes. For example, if you’re working in DV-PAL with
a nonsquare video frame size of 720 x 576, your graphic should have a square pixel
frame size of 768 x 576.
2 Create the graphic.
3 Do one of the following:
 In your graphics program, rescale the graphic from the square frame size used to
create it to the nonsquare equivalent used in Motion.
 Save your image as is.
Within your Motion project, select the object in the Media tab of the project window,
open the Media tab in the Inspector, then choose the correct aspect ratio from the
Pixel Aspect Ratio pop-up menu.
Video format
Nonsquare 4:3 pixel
size (Motion) Aspect
ratio Square pixel size
(graphics program)
601-NTSC 4:3 720 x 486 0.9 720 x 547
601-NTSC 16:9 Anamorphic 720 x 486 1.2 853 x 486
DV-NTSC 4:3 720 x 480 0.9 720 x 540
DV-NTSC 16:9 Anamorphic 720 x 480 1.2 853 x 480
601/DV-PAL 4:3 720 x 576 1.07 768 x 576
601/DV-PAL 16:9 Anamorphic 720 x 576 1.42 1024 x 576
720i/p high definition NA 1.0 1280 x 720
1080i/p high definition NA 1.0 1920 x 1080