User Guide

Chapter 2 Preparing Assets 85
Square Pixels in Graphics
Graphics programs use square pixels. If you set the dimensions of a graphic to
720 x 480 pixels (the NTSC frame size), you will notice that the drawing area of the
graphic in the graphics program is not a 4:3 aspect ratio (it is a bit short). If you set a
graphic to PAL dimensions (720 x 576 pixels), the drawing area you see in your graphics
program is taller than 4:3.
Anything you put in the graphic will be distorted (either vertically stretched or
compressed, depending on your video standard) when viewed on a video monitor. If
you draw a square, it will look like a rectangle. In some cases, the distortion is not great
enough to worry about, but in most cases you should build your graphics with the
distortion in mind.
To compensate for pixel differences between graphics and video, you need to build the
graphics at one size, and then rescale them to the appropriate video dimensions, as
shown in the following table.
DVD Studio Pro will automatically rescale graphics that use the starting dimensions
above. (Graphics that already use the rescale dimensions are imported without any
rescaling.) If you rescale the graphics in your graphics program, they will appear
distorted in the graphics program, but will be correct when viewed in DVD Studio Pro
as rectangular pixels.
Note: See “Shape Aspect Ratios” on page 96 for information on how DVD Studio Pro
works with graphics used in shapes, buttons, and drop zones.
Aspect ratio Starting dimension Rescale dimension
NTSC 4:3 720 x 534 pixels 720 x 480 pixels
NTSC 16:9 864 x 480 pixels 720 x 480 pixels
PAL 4:3 768 x 576 pixels 720 x 576 pixels
PAL 16:9 1024 x 576 pixels 720 x 576 pixels