Apple Final Cut Pro 7 - Manual (Page 1178)

If the aspect ratio of your imported graphic doesn’t match that of your edited sequence,
the graphic will not exactly fit the dimensions of the Canvas and will therefore appear
letterboxed or pillarboxed. For more information about aspect ratios, see
“Video Formats.”
• If your graphic is taller than it is wide: There are gray borders to the right and left of the
image in the Viewer and Canvas. The borders are not part of the image.
Gray borders appear
on the sides because
this image is taller than
it is wide.
• If your graphic is wider than it is tall: There are gray borders at the top and bottom of
the image in the Viewer and Canvas. The borders are not part of the image.
Understanding Digital SD Video Non-Square Pixels
When creating graphics for SD video, you need to consider the fact that the digital video
pixels are considered to be non-square (taller than wide for NTSC video, or wider than
tall for PAL video) compared to your computer graphics program that uses square pixels.
Non-square pixels are also referred to as rectangular pixels.
Note: Some computer graphics programs support non-square pixels, making it simpler
to create graphics for SD video formats like NTSC and PAL. For high definition (HD) video
formats, you can simply create square pixel graphics, which means designing graphics
with exactly the same image dimensions as your HD format.
Reconciling the difference between non-square pixels and square pixels can cause a lot
of confusion for beginning video graphic designers, but the best rules of thumb are to:
• Use a graphics application that supports non-square pixels, such as Adobe Photoshop.
In this case, you create your graphics with the proper dimensions and pixel aspect ratio
throughout the entire post-production process.
• Keep your destination video frame size in mind and follow the table in the section
“Frame Size Chart for Creating Graphics” when designing graphics in your graphics
application.
1178 Chapter 70 Working with Freeze Frames and Still Images