Stretched video in Avid Cinema

[Graham Meredith]

Whenever I capture video in Avid Cinema 1.0.1 in "good" quality setting in PAL format using my G400TV,and then save it as a .AVI file the image plays OK in Avid, but in something like Media player or Quicktime, the image is stretched vertically. Under properties in explorer the image size is quoted as 352 x 574, which confirms the stretch. The only way to get the correct portions is to save it as "presentation" mode, but then the resolution is reduced (320 x 240). I would have thought it would capture at something like 352 x 288 in "good" mode. Have I not selected some hidden setting somewhere? Capturing in "best" quality mode gives 704 x 574 which is great but in some cases I don't want such large file sizes. Any help?

Graham

Setup:
P111 450
Gigabyte BX6E motherboard
Seagate 10.2G 5400rpm HD
Ricoh MP6200 CDRW
Creative 48x CDROM
128MB RAM
Marvel G400-TV video capture card
Creative AWE64G sound card
Turtle beach Malibu sound card
Winbond 10MB/s Network card

Windows 98SE
Avid Cinema
using Powerdesk 5.25
and Video Tools 1.41

[Dr Mordrid]

This is normal. The video will play with a normal aspect ratio to the video ouput for recording.

In editing-ese "Presentation" is a somewhat nebulous term meaning small frame video for display on a computer screen. It can be almost anything from 320x240 to 352x288 to 384x288, depending on the editing softwares presets and your needs. All that's really important is to keep the aspect ratio correct. Avid does this for you.

Actually the "Good" mode is an excellent choice if the target is videotape and you want to save disk space. You really don't lose much quality vs. the "Best" as long as your edits are simple and without fancy effects, which you can't do in AVID anyhow.

If the target is a computer monitor then Presnetation would be the better option.

Each tool to it's best use.

Dr. Mordrid


[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 25 October 2000).]