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Understanding and UsingHigh-Definition Video
Introduction
is document is written for digital media professionals interested in moving to high-defini-tion production, post-production, and distribution. is document focuses is on the powerfulAdobe® desktop applications, Adobe Aer Effects® and Adobe Premiere® Pro, but it also includesinformation about many other tools and products as they integrate into this workflow.e two goals of this document are to help you understand what’s involved in making the tran-sition to authoring and distributing high-definition content and to help you get the best resultsout of that transition.
WHITE PAPER
 TABLE OF CONTENTS1 Introduction2 What is high definition?4 How HD is used today6 HD in production7 HD tape formats8 HD storage9 Using RAID systems for HD stor-age10 HD and connectivity11 Capturing HD content12 Adobe Premiere Pro-compat-ible HD solutions13 Post-production for HD content15 SD color space versus HD colorspace15 Deciding on the distributionmedia for HD content17 Distribution formats for HDcontent19 Display devices for HD20 Computer playback configura-tions21 Playing HD audio22 Conclusion
 
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Using and UnderstandingHigh-Definition Video
What is high definition?
Aer years of anticipation, high definition (HD) has finally, if not stealthily, gone mainstream inprofessional video. Over-the-air HD is rapidly building an audience, and HD DVD developmentis proceeding apace. People are also using HD during production and post-production in a wide variety of ways. For example, the pioneering DVD company, Criterion, uses HD on D5 tape fordigital intermediates from their telecine captures. Suddenly, companies are finding that they have HD content to distribute and are looking for ways to distribute it.e myth is that HD is very expensive and difficult to author. e reality is that HD has becomeeasier and cheaper than standard definition (SD) was only a few years ago. Today, you can builda complete entry-level HD editing system, including storage, soware, and camera, for underUS $10,000. Higher-end and uncompressed HD editing systems can still be much more expen-sive, but they are also declining in price as more options enter the market.
Defining HD
High definition simply means “more than standard definition.” e highest resolution SD for-mat is PAL, with 576 lines. us, almost any video with a frame size greater than 576 lines tallis a type of HD. HD video is generally either 1920 x 1080 or 1280 x 720, with a 16:9 aspect ratio.However, there are many situations where other sizes may be appropriate, such as when youplan to play back the video on a computer.
1601202404837201080352 720 1280 1920
QCIF176x12822,528px
CIF352x288101,376pxNTSC DV720x480345,600px7201280x720921,600px10801920x10802,073,600px
 Types of HD
TypeSizeFrames per Second
720 24p1280 x 720 23.976 fps progressive720 25p 1280 x 72025 fps progressive720 30p1280 x 72029.97 fps progressive720 50p1280 x 72050 fps progressive720 60p1280 x 72059.94 fps progressive1080 24p1920 x 108023.976 fps progressive1080 25p1920 x 108025 fps progressive1080 30p1920 x 108029.97 fps progressive1080 50i1920 x 108050 fields per second/25 fps interlaced1080 60i1920 x 108059.94 fields per second/29.97 fps interlaced
HD terminology
 There is a lot more variability withinHD than within SD. The terminologycan be confusing, and it changesdepending on the source used. This document uses the followingformat when discussing HD content:<frame height> <frame/field rate><interlaced/progressive>. For ex-ample, 720 60p means a frame thatis 1280 x 720 pixels and 60 progres-sive frames per second. Conversely,1080 60i means a frame that is 1920x 1080 pixels and 60 interlaced fieldsper second. Of course, for interlacedformats, each frame is made of twofields, so the frame rate is half thefield rate.In NTSC formats, the frame/field rateis actually 0.1% lower than listed, so24p is really 23.976 frames per sec-ond, and 60i is really 59.94 fields persecond. PAL formats use the listedframe rate—25p is really 25 framesper second.Often times, 720 60p is called720p and 1080 60i is called 1080i.However, those labels are ambigu-ous as to frame rate. 720 can run at24p, and 1080 can run at 50i in itsEuropean version. The most common types of HD
Video formats and sizes
 This chart illustrates the relativesizes of different video formats’frames, with a count for the numberof total pixels. These aren’t aspectratio corrected. For the actualshapes of video frames in differentformats, see the next image.
 
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Using and UnderstandingHigh-Definition Video
Note that the 720 sizes don’t have interlaced options, and the 1080 sizes don’t support progres-sive at the highest rates.NTSC normally reduces the frame rate by 0.1%; thus, for 30 frames per second you would get29.97 frames per second to match the frame rate of NTSC color broadcasts. While this reduc-tion is optional in most HD products, most people use the lower rates.
Frame SizeTitleWidthHeightAreaAspectWidthAspectHeightCorrectedWidthCorrectedHeight
NTSC VCD352 px240 px84480 px43336 px252 pxPAL VCD352 px288 px101376 px43368 px276 pxNTSC SD4:3720 px480 px 345600 px43679 px 509 pxNTSC SD16:9720 px480 px345600 px169784 px441 pxPAL SD 4:3720 px576 px414720 px43744 px558 pxPAL SD 16:9720 px576 px414720 px169859 px483 px1280 x 7201280 px720 px921600 px1691280 px720 px1920 x 10801920 px1080 px2073600 px1691920 px1080 px
A (very) short history of HD
HD video for consumers has been around for about 20 years, even though it has only recently developed a sizable audience. e history of broadcast HD is fascinating and has been ably toldby the New York Times’ Joel Brinkley in his book
Defining Vision: How Broadcasters Lured theGovernment into Inciting a Revolution in Television
.e original HD-broadcasting standard for consumers was Muse, created by Japan’s NHK.Muse was an analog HD system intended for satellite broadcast. While it produced very goodimage quality, market realities kept Muse from getting much traction.At the time, there was a drive in the U.S. Congress to reallocate some unused UHF channelsfrom broadcasters to emergency communications and other uses. As an excuse to keep thechannels, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) proclaimed it needed the channelsfor HD broadcasts in the future. is proclamation succeeded in the short term, but it commit-ted the NAB to broadcasting in HD and (in theory) eventually to giving up analog channels forother uses.e Federal Communications Commission (FCC) set up the Advanced Television SystemsCommittee (ATSC) to define the specification for HD broadcasts. e process took years morethan expected, but the standard was finally created, and broadcasters began HD broadcasts.In 2004, most prime time shows are broadcast in HD, and both cable and satellite systems areintroducing HD channels.Even today, only a minority of consumers in the U.S., and a much smaller minority in otherindustrialized nations, actually have access to HDTV systems. But HD capable displays are sell-ing very well now, even if many displays are only used to view standard definition content, likeDVD.e next big advancement for HD is likely to be HD DVD for which the standard is currently indevelopment.
Relative dimensions of theframes for aspect-correctedvideo
Each dimension is aspect-ratiocorrected with the correct numberof pixels for the frame, so 720 x 48016:9 is drawn wider and shorterthan 720 x 480 4:3.
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