• VEGAS Pro

  Why are my Xvid MP4 renders letterboxing on YouTube?

  Posted by Mark Lynch on February 10, 2010 at 7:00 am

  I have Sony Vegas 8.0b Platinum. My MPEG4 codec, under .AVI, is constantly letterboxing on youtube (ie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9BFkVbVtiE )

  I was told that I need to make the MP4 render options match the project aspect ratio (16:9). Well, in my render options, the section for “Aspect Ratio” is the following:
  – 0.9091
  – 1.0000
  – 1.0926
  – 1.2121
  – 1.3333
  – 1.4568

  I was also told that the only way to avoid “squeezing/strectching” the video on YouTube was to make that Aspect Ratio 1.0000.

  So, what else am I supposed to do to make it not letterbox? If I have to keep it at 1.0000 to keep it looking correct, what do I do to make it fill the entire YouTube video window?

  John Rofrano replied 16 years, 5 months ago 3 Members · 4 Replies
• 4 Replies

• 

  Douglas Spotted eagle

  February 10, 2010 at 8:11 am

  You’re confusing PAR (Pixel Aspect Ratio) with SAR (Screen Aspect Ratio)
  Renders for the web should ONLY be square (1.0 PAR)

  Douglas Spotted Eagle
  VASST

  Certified Sony Vegas Trainer
  Aerial Camera/Instructor
• 

  John Rofrano

  February 10, 2010 at 12:32 pm

  If I have to keep it at 1.0000 to keep it looking correct, what do I do to make it fill the entire YouTube video window?

  To keep the pixel aspect ration at 1.000 you have to multiply the width of your video by the PAR of your project. So if you have DV Widescreen video that is 720×480 with a PAR of 1.2121, you would multiply 720 by 1.2121 which is 873 (rounded). That means that you should modify your render template to use 873×480 PAR 1.000 for the aspect of your video to be correct on the web.

  ~jr

  http://www.johnrofrano.com
  http://www.vasst.com
• 

  Mark Lynch

  February 10, 2010 at 8:58 pm

  Okay, well when I go to Custom Frame Size, and change it to 873×480 (After having chosen Xvid MPEG4 Codec, and 1.0000 PAR), and start rendering it, I immediately get a message saying:
  
  “An Error Occurred while creating the media file.

  No compatible codec was found.”
  

  I have the MP4 codec. What is missing/wrong?
• 

  John Rofrano

  February 10, 2010 at 10:56 pm

  I don’t know why you are getting that error, I don’t use Xvid. Why don’t you use the Sony AVC MPEG4 encoder instead? That’s what I use for my YouTube videos and they look great.

  ~jr

  http://www.johnrofrano.com
  http://www.vasst.com

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