Plasma screen flash presentation problem

[iain]

My Girlfiend has to develop a flash animation to be displayed on a plasma screen. We have been provided with a spec of the screen which has a native resolution of 1024 x 1024 and has a 16:9 ratio.

The flash movie will be running on a PC laptop, and I'm assuming that it will be using a video resolution of 1024 x 768.

1024 x 768 is not 16:9 aspect ratio.
Creating the movie 1024 x 576 (16:9) and letting the plasma screen deal with the cropping/zooming seems to me to be the most logical way to do this.

Does this sound right?

Or, create the movie at 1024 x 768 and add black bars top and bottom?

Any suggestions appreciated.
Iain

[krissel]

I altered the thread title slightly to get more attention.

krissel

and

 

[iain]

Thanks Kris  

We've created the movie at 1024 x 576 with a full screen command and are hoping that the plasma screen will have sufficient crop/zoom functions to be able to cope with that.

Its always a problem when you can't test the final result.  

Any info still appreciated.
Cheers.

[tacit]

1024 x 1024 isn't 16:9, either. Either the plasma screen doesn't use square pixels, which is a possibility but makes creating a presentation quite difficult, or its native resolution isn't 1024x1024.

First thing I'd do is double-check the native resolution. If it really is 1024x1024, then images presented on it will tend to look distorted, because the pixels aren't square.

If the resolution ISN'T 1024x1024, then you'll want to do exactly what you did--make the presentation 1024x576. That's an unusual pixel dimension, and some graphics cards might not support it, but it might be your best bet.

[krissel]

iain, you got it from the expert. (thanks, tacit )



Let us know how it turns out.  

[iain]

Thanks Tacit.
Native resolution is definitely 1024 x 1024, looks like the ratio is in the dot pitch. Found the spec-
Pixel pitch: 0.90 (Horizontal), 0.51 (Vertical)

But thats only half the story isn't it, the other being the video output that is possible from the laptop(Don't think 1024 x 1024 would be).

I'm still counting on the screen having comprehensive zoom, crop and stretch functions, if it doesn't...  
Anyway, it will be with the client later on in the week so I'll post the outcome.

Cheers for the help.

[tacit]

"Native resolution is definitely 1024 x 1024, looks like the ratio is in the dot pitch. Found the spec-
Pixel pitch: 0.90 (Horizontal), 0.51 (Vertical)"

So the pixels aren't square.

Yuck. Yuck, yuck, yuck. Monitors and displays with weird aspect ratios and non-square pixels are a nightmare to work with.

[iain]

End result. White bars top and bottom and the presentation looked sqashed  

The output from the laptop was obviously 1024 x 768 giving the white bars above and below our 1024 x 576 presentation. Either the plasma screen didn't have the ability to crop and  zoom in that particular way or the guys setting this up didn't bother.

Tacit, yup- non square pixels =  

Luckily, it still looked fine and the white bars did not look out of place with the design. More importantly the client was happy so no big deal in the end.

To overcome this in the future. Produce the movie in 4:3 and squash all the components to compensate. That would just leave the problem of previewing the work in progress, as it would look bonkers to the client.

Cheers.