Down-sampling in SV

[Steve Mason]

John,

As per your request:

[Bob Peterson]

No, for my suggestion, you would choose the output size within project properties which is 720 x 480. Then, within the pan/crop window, you would right click on the image in the pan/crop screen and choose the setting of “Match Output Aspect”. That would tell Vegas that it should limit the HD screen size to what is specified for project output which is 720 x 480.

Does that mean that you won’t be able to see the full HD image? The answer is yes. You can pan the image, but you will be unable to see the full HD image all at once on your screen. If you need the full HD image to be visible, then my suggestion won’t help. My answer was premised on the statement that you are outputting to DVD. The only way that I know of to output full HD to DVD is to letter box the HD image. That means you will have black bars at the top and bottom of the screen because the HD image aspect ratio cannot be displayed full screen within the DVD standard. My understanding is that DVDs display 720 x 480. Even widescreen is limited to those dimensions.

Vegas will letterbox the HD video if necessary to make it fit. You don’t need to make adjustments for that to happen.

[John Rofrano]

OK, so you are working on an SD project. Your project properties look fine. I usually work in an HD project and render to SD but if you have mixed formats it should be fine to work in an SD project as well. If you right-click on an event that contains HD media, then select properties… what does the Media Tab show? Does Vegas Pro correctly identify the HD media as interlaced?

At this point I would do a simple test of starting a new DV Widescreen project, drop an HD clip on the timeline and render to DVD. Just to see if it’s something about Vegas Pro or something that you are doing later in the editing process like cropping that’s causing the problem.

I’m also wondering if the project option to “Adjust source media to better match project or render setting” is causing a problem. Try unchecking this option after you create your project but before you drop any clips into the timeline. Then drop an HD clip, render again and see if it makes a difference. I beleive I usually keep this unchecked and I see that you have it checked.

~jr

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

[John Rofrano]

[Bob Peterson] “My understanding is that DVDs display 720 x 480. Even widescreen is limited to those dimensions.”

Actually DVD’s don’t use square pixels so NTSC DVD Widescreen is 873×480 in square pixels and PAL DVD Widescreen is 1049×576 in square pixels and both have an aspect ratio that is actually slightly wider than HD.

The question is whether the SD material is DV or not because DV also uses non-square pixels.

~jr

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

[Steve Mason]

I upped the quality to 9M CBR and the DC coefficient to 10 – I left the “stretch to fit” checked and while not perfect, the footage looks decent.

Thanks to you gents for the assist.

Cheers