Merci Yvon-Robert,

But I'm not sure that I understand you're answer. The program asks for movie settings before I even get to the timeline to drop in a video clip or photo. When I start the program, a Create Project box comes up to enter a name, followed by Movie Settings. The drop down for movie settings as all kinds of choices. I understand NTSC and PAL but some of them are neither. For example, at the bottom of the drop down list you have Ultra HDTV-2 60p 16:9 (7680x4320;59.94 FPS). I'm assuming that that setting will give me the highest resolution output but will it work on the North American standard? What will it do to my video clips and photos that aren't that high of a resolution?

John

@pucklogic

This is my own personal take on this.

If you are making a file from multiple clips of various resolutions and frame rates for use on Blu Ray then look at your Blu-ray players specifications. Some are region free and capable of playing NTSC or PAL output while others are not. If you are playing files via a USB input then you need to check the specifications of the machine you are plugging in to. TVs capabilities vary greatly and depending on make and model will play some files while not others, so while our main lounge TV can play mov, files our kitchen TV will only play MP4 files of the appropriate frame rates and resolutions. Adding stills of any resolution to a video file will only be displayed at the resolution of the final video file. The downside can be sometimes this can cause moire patterns or banding of colour but this is not always the case. There is little point in trying to provide a file for Blu-ray higher than the specs for a Blu-ray disk and MEPs own preset should be sufficient. Although personally I would prefer to play such files via a USB stick where a higher quality file may yield better results depending on the specifications of the TV.

Ray.

Thanks CubeAce. More complicated than I thought. I never thought of all the play device specifications. I'll probably play most of my movies using a USB or hard drive but we have different TVs like you. One is 4k, the other is 1080i. I think the best solution would be for me to make a short movie with a variety of video settings and content. Then I can test it on our devices to see which work best. I'll start with the highest resolution and then work my way down until I get the results that I want.

@pucklogic

The standard approach is to use project settings equal to planned export/burn settings. That way, everything is set up for the export, including titles and effects, or something like that.

I use a template project with all settings, track colours, and more, and then change the name of the project and save it when I start. Since I'm in North America, I use NTSC 16:9 (1920x1080) 29.97fps for my projects, and I export to NTSC 1920x1080p.

Does a box keep popping up somewhere asking for this information?

John CB

@browj2

I think I'll end up doing the same as you on both ends. The only thing that bothers me is that I have some 4K movie clips that won't show up as well when I play them on my 4k TV if I use the 1920x1080 resolution. Alternatively, I suppose that I can try to match the highest resolution available for the MPEG4 export setting with the initial movie settings in the pop-up box that appears when I start the program. That appears to be 4096x2160 for both the movie setting (NTSC 4K) and the MPEG-4 export. Thanks for your suggestion.

@pucklogic

Hi

Good advice there from the others. I would start your tests by setting the Movie Settings at the same resolution and frame rate as your highest parameter that any of your videos contain which would probably be UHD 3840 x 2160p and 60 or 59.94fps. MEP will then mirror these settings when you select and export file type eg MPEG4 and upscale all the footage to these settings. Copy this to a USB stick and try it on your TV whose maximum resolution will be UHD 3840x2160 and not 4096x2160 even though it is called a 4K TV. It may baulk at the high frame rate in which case you will need to select 29.97fps for you next test.

4K TVs are pretty good at upscaling lower resolutions so the 3rd test could be exporting at HD 1920x1080P at the maximum frame rate determined in the previous tests. MEP is pretty good at downscaling to lower res (without moire patterns, etc.) so it would save you a lot of storage space for the smaller HD files and, after the TV upscales it, give an interesting comparison to the UHD test.

Note that footage shot at UHD (4K) and exported at HD still looks sharper than footage originated at HD.

I would not set your movie settings at 4096x2160 4K if your footage is only UHD 3840x2160 as this is also the maximum your TV can show anyway.

Peter