User Guide

46 Chapter 4, Preparing Assets
Preparing Still Image Assets
Scenarist supports the following still image file formats and sizes, which can be used for still
menus, still and slide shows, subpictures, and subtitles.
Note: Multi-layer Photoshop files are imported as a single, flattened image. Scenarist does
not support LZW-compressed TIFF files.
Note: Still images that are not of the required size are automatically scaled when imported
in Scenarist, which can lead to unwanted stretching, shrinking, or artifacts.
Adjusting for Television Overscan
Television monitors are designed to overscan the screen area, meaning that the outer 5–10%
of the picture on all sides (top, bottom, left and right) is not actually visible to the viewer.
The degree of overscan varies depending on the individual televisions. Overscanning is not
a concern for projects intended for viewing only on computer monitors.
To avoid losing important visual information due to overscan, key graphical elements should
remain within the Action Safe and Title Safe boundaries.
Action Safe Area within which action should be confined to ensure it is visible on most
televisions (typically a 5% margin from each edge).
Title Safe Area within which to place a title or graphical element so that none of it falls
outside the visible region on most television sets (typically a 10% margin from each edge).
File Formats
BMP, GIF, JPEG, PICT, PCD (Photo CD), PSD (Photoshop), SGI, TGA (Targa),
TIFF, and YUV
NTSC Image Sizes
720 x 480, 704 x 480, 352 x 240
PAL Image Sizes
720 x 576, 704 x 576, 352 x 288