//subdivision

Ren asked about whether you can make a 16:9 movie rather than 4:3 for your project. I am fine with this, although it can be a bit fiddly setting it up correctly for a DVD.

There are various standards of widescreen, to aid compatibility with older TV sets.
Letterboxed - actually 4:3 ratio (like 'normal' TV) but there are black bars at the top and bottom of the video. Widescreen TVs should chop these off. Highest compatibility.
Anamorphic - actually 4:3 ratio but the image is squashed upwards. Widescreen TVs should un-squash the image whilst many 'normal' TVs won't. Higher quality than letterboxed.
'Real' anamorphic - This is recorded at high resolution with no squashing but will only play back correctly on widescreen TVs. Highest quality. Lowest compatibility.

Various applications offer varying levels of support for these standards. Some offer none. I'd generally recommend letterboxed for compatibility and simplicity. This basically means making a normal PAL resolution video (720*576) with black bars, so the visible action is actually 720*405 plus 171 pixels of black.

When changing resolution in C4D, ensure you are not cutting the head off a character, etc. Go to the Edit menu on the perspective view, then to configure. In the Attribute inspector, go to View, and tick 'Render Safe'. This will show you the area to be rendered on the perspective view.

Letterboxed - Black bars are recorded at top and bottom, widescreen TVs will zoom them out, 4:3 TV will not, and you still get the 16:9 effect.
Cinema 4D -
* Resolution - PAL D1
* Film Format - HDTV (16:9)
* Pixel - 1.067:1
* Under 'save' section - Quicktime Movie. Under 'options' - Compression: none

This will result in a 720*405 video, so now we just need the black bars. FCP will add these automatically. iMovie does not. Choose standard PAL resolution for the project. You can then export from FCP as DV with the bars at as standard 720*576, which can be used in iDVD
You can even rescale and add black bars in Quicktime Pro.

Anamorphic - Highest quality, image is recorded on whole 720x576 frame, then squashed down on playback. Not supported in iDVD 4, but is supported in iDVD 5. Can be fiddly to set up and use as it depends upon software, TV and DVD player's support (some will not recognise the anamorphic 'flag' in the video and leave it squashed at 4:3) Settings:
Cinema 4D -
* Resolution - PAL D1
* Film Format - Automatic
* Pixel - 1.42:1
* Under 'save' section - Quicktime Movie. Under 'options' - Compression: none
This renders a video which looks horizontally squashed. It is, as the hardware would squash it to widescreen.

You would then need to import to FinalCutPro with Anamorphic PAL settings and export to iDVD5 or DVD Studio Pro, again with anamorphic settings.

Tagged as 3D, Animation, Cinema4d, rendering, Training & Learning, video + Categorized as Training & Learning