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Table Of Contents
Using Fonts and Creating Line Art for Video
When creating line art or selecting a font to use in an interlaced broadcast video image,
avoid creating horizontal single-pixel lines. Also avoid using fonts that are too thin. Because
of the line-alternating nature of interlaced video, single-pixel lines flicker when the field
in which they appear turns on and off. This results in a buzzing effect in your graphics,
with the buzzing becoming more pronounced the closer the thin portions of graphics
or texture in your image come to the horizontal axis.
This problem can be mitigated by adding a bit of blur or antialiasing to your image.
Nonetheless, the best thing to do is to avoid single-pixel lines when creating graphics
for broadcast.
Scaling Imported High-Resolution Graphics
A high-resolution image is useful to pan and zoom in or out of an image (such as a scanned
map or photograph). There won’t be any image degradation because you typically won’t
need to zoom more than 100 percent.
Scaling video and still images up to more than 100 percent creates artifacts: individual
pixels become noticeable, causing a stair-stepping effect on high-contrast diagonal lines.
Sometimes the frame size of your imported graphic doesn’t match the frame size of your
edited sequence. If the frame size of the graphic is too large, only a small part of your
image appears in the Canvas. If it’s too small, the background color of the Canvas (usually
black) appears behind the graphic.
To scale an imported graphic to match the frame size of a sequence, use the following
frame sizes:
Type of videoFrame size (pixels)
High definition, 16:9, square pixel1920 x 1080
High definition, 16:9, square pixel1280 x 720
Standard definition, 4:3, nonsquare pixel for NTSC720 x 486
Standard definition DV, 4:3, nonsquare pixel for NTSC720 x 480
Standard definition, 4:3, nonsquare pixel for PAL720 x 576
Multimedia, 4:3, square pixel640 x 480
Multimedia, 4:3, square pixel480 x 360
Multimedia, 4:3, square pixel320 x 240
Multimedia, 4:3, square pixel240 x 180
Multimedia, 4:3, square pixel160 x 120
1429Appendix B Video and File Formats