Magazine - Full Page Advert:
There is no fixed size for magazines. A lot of different publications use slightly varied sizes from others. I found a website for a magazine listing the dimensions that they accept for a full page advertisement (which is what I will be producing) and they specified 7x10 inches, 300dpi. Having create a layout this size in photoshop it seems to be a standard, decent size for a magazine page so I will be using this measurement. The aspect ratio works out as 1:1.42857.. but aspect ratio isn't really an issue in printed media.
Source: http://www.intermezzomagazine.com/pages/advertise.html
Billboard:
There are several different types of billboard, and they are defined by how many sheets make up the image. A billboard is made up of many smaller sheets of print put together to form a big image. I found a website listing the different types of billboard, as well as their sizes. We will not actually be producing a piece of work the size of a billboard, but it's good information to know.
4 sheet is 40x60 inches.
6 sheet is 1200mmx1800mm.
12 sheet is 120x60 inches.
16 sheet is 80x120 inches.
32 sheet is 160x120 inches.
48 sheet is 240x120 inches.
The brief doesn't specify what type of billboard, although it is safe to assume that it is the landscape roadside style billboards. As I have said, the size is not important here but the aspect ration is. As you can see, the very wide landscape billboards have an aspect ration of 2:1 which seems about right for a roadside billboard and is what I will use for my project.
Source: http://www.vinyl-banners.co.uk/billboard_poster_sizes.htm
Television:
TVs come in many sizes, and with the recent HD technology the shape is changing as well. Most TV is Britain is still broadcast for standard definition at a 4:3 aspect ratio, so this is what I will likely go with for my TV version of my motion graphics advertisement. We live in PAL territory so I will need to keep this in mind. I will have a look at some of the variations on that.
PAL: 25 frames per second
NTSC: 29.97 frames per second
Standard Definition TV: 720x576 resolution, 4:3 aspect ratio
High Definition (720p): 1280x720 resolution, 16:9 aspect ratio
High Definition (1080p): 1920x1080 resolution, 16:9 aspect ratio
Internet:
The internet has been a massive source for video in recent years and there are many platforms and formats in place for distribution and playback including streaming and download. If I was going to create my video for the web I would consider using web friendly formats such a flv, but low file size is also key to video on the web because of data transfer speeds. Video size used to be a big issue because of file size but that is not such a big deal any more, but I still might consider exporting my video at a lower resolution for the web. Quicktime's export options has specific internet streaming options, which encodes the file to be optimized for streaming. I will keep this in mind if I am going to be using this video on the web.
Smart Phones:
Portable devices such as the iPhone and iPod touch are media devices capable of playing video. I will need to port my video to these type of smart phones so people are able to play the video on one of these devices and have it look good without distorting to compensate for the unique display. I will be concentrating on the iPhone and the iPod touch as they are the most popular. I have looked at some technical specifications provided by apple to understand how I must set up my video.
iPhone 3G, 3GS & iPod Touch:
- 3.5-inch (diagonal) widescreen Multi-Touch display
- 480-by-320-pixel resolution at 163 ppi
- 3:2 aspect ratio
Video formats supported: H.264 video, up to 1.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Low-Complexity version of the H.264 Baseline Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats.
Source: http://www.apple.com/iphone/specs.html
Android Phones:
- Various screen sizes
- 480x320 resolution
- 3:2 aspect ratio
Source:http://justdevelopment.blogspot.com/2009/10/video-streaming-with-android-phone.html#Getting_the_Right_Dimensions
These 2 platforms seem very similar so I don't have to make any real changes if I am going to worry about each smart phone platform.