I want to export my final poser output to videotape. So it will be seen on a tv set. What size should the output be? I had always thought it was 640x480 but recently saw that tv resolution was 480x400. So now I'm confused. I know it's 30 frames per second, I just need to know how big to make the frames. Thanks in advance. Kim Webster

It's probably best to go with a standard NTSC or PAL video resolution that will transfer to video. I make Video CD's (both VCD and SVCD formats). The digital video must conform to strict resolution, data rate, and sound standards. For the best info on this try www.vcdhelp.com. If you can, make a video CD instead. It is more durable and will probably look a little better than video tape. Also if you need to transfer it to video tape you can do so and still retain the high quality master disc. Plus you can play it back on both a computer and a properly equipped DVD player (and of course a VCD player). Many DVD players now have this capability and vcdhelp provides a list of them. MPEG-1 (VCD) NTSC-compliant video, for example has a resolution of 352X240 pixels with a data rate of about 1124K, and stereo 16-bit 44KHz sound at 224K bitrate. You can fit about 1 hour of video on a video CD using this format. MPEG-2 (SVCD) NTSC-compliant video has a resolution of 480X480 with a data rate of about 2200K, and slightly higher quality sound with the same spec as above except it's 48KHz sample rate. Note the vertical resolution is doubled, and will yield a better looking video at the expense of less time on disc.You can fit about 30 minutes of video on a video CD using this format. MPEG-2 is also the format used for DVD, with even higher resolution and data rate (704X480, 5MB respectively). Hope this helps. Krel

I usually use 640 X 480. In college they made us use 720 X 540. If you are hooking the TV up to your computer then you should be able to change its resolution as if it where a moniter.

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Attached Link: http://www.3-AXIS.com

We used a Video Toaster 2 for our Poser 5 Demystified video. We used a resolution of 720x480. This gave us full screen at 30fps NTSC DV. The Toaster is cool because it plays back at 30fps with no compression. I'm assuming that some other non-linear editing systems use different resolutions. I don't know much about them. I would also suggest rendering out sequenced tiff images. This way you will have the image files you need for whatever you decide the final output will be. For instance, you can open up a sequence of images in Quicktime Pro and export a movie. I hope this helps, Joe www.3-AXIS.com

Rendering out sequenced files is a must for me. Sometimes I have no idea how long its going to take or an error accors and I lose everything if I'm rendering one file like quicktime or avi. Plus tiff files have alpha channels. Alot of this would depend on what software you are useing for video as well. I used to render to 15 fps if I was in a rush. Video tape is always going to record at 30 fps. Cuts your rendering time in half.

Attached Link: http://www.aistinc.com/products/MovieXone.asp

If you don't have a Video editing program, I'm pretty sure the FREE 'Movie X One' will open sequenced .tiff and .tga files. Might be worth a look, if you need fairly decent free video editing. http://www.aistinc.com/products/MovieXone.asp

Assuming that you actually intend to put this on videotape, the correct answer can only be determined by the specs of the software/hardware you use to do the conversion.

NTSC video is 720x480 30 FPS(29.9) If you live in Europe they use a different system called PAL, which uses a different resolution and framerate.

Although numerous digital video formats, with various pixel aspect ratios, can be converted to the the NTSC standard adopted by the FCC, "NTSC" is an analog signal format (EIA RS-170A), and therefore, it is not defined in terms of pixels.

The RS-170A specifications define an analog waveform in terms of frequency, timing, phase relationships and amplitudes. Not a pixel hiding in that haystack anywhere.

So, if someone says that NTSC is H-pixels by V-pixels, what they mean is the specific digital-to-analog converter they are using requires the digital input be in that format to be able to output a proper analog NTSC signal.

Hence my answer above - it depends on the converter.