Same pixel dimensions but different sizes?

[pctechtv]

I am trying to understand why sometimes I get different output from what seems like the same pixel dimensions. Here I show two pictures of menus  from Adobe Encore edited in Photoshop. One was the default menu that I choose that said it was a “WIDE” version and the other was a standard size (not WIDE). I got confused, because when edited in Photoshop they both said 720 px X 480 px. I burned a DVD that the video was rendered for NTSC DV Wide (Adobe Media Encoder), and when I played it, the menu it had pillar boxing and letter boxing. I understand that when this happens means the video is the wrong size. So I went back to Photoshop and noticed that the videos say the same pixel dimensions, however they also have a Image Size amount listed. For the not WIDE version it reads 854.3K  for the WIDE version it reads 1012.5K. I also noticed there is now way to change this. What is going on here? How can you know that your video is the correct size for your desired output type. Thanks

[Richard M Knight · Accepted solution]

Although both the standard and wide versions of the NTSC menu have the same pixel size, the shape of the pixels is different. The pixel aspect ratio (PAR) is more rectangular for the widescreen version. A Google for PAR will give you more details.

[pctechtv]

Great, I did know about this concept when I was in video editing every day years back, rusty now but I remember. You showed me the correct stuff to really understand now. Thank You

[pctechtv]

So different video apps seem to be making different size pixel graphics on export. I think that is what I am going on. If I edit that graphic in Photoshop, I can ensure when sent back to the original app (e.g. Camtasia) I have what size I need. My question is, how I can do this with Illustrator? That is, set the size of the artboard and the pixel, so it matches my exported frame size. Because when I use the great new feature Asset Export, I always wind up with the wrong size asset (e.g. *.png file), and have to scale it up. Thanks

[R Neil Haugen]

For that question, you'd really need to go to the Illustrator forum ... I've done a bit with it, but I don't know my way around it very well. Few here do ...

Illustrator

Neil

[pctechtv]

Thanks I will add it there instead.