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Downrendering to NTSC DV cropping a little
I’ve got 1080p footage, my friend needs it as 4×3 NTSC DV for broadcast. Obviously I can just change the project properties in Vegas 11, and render it out with black bars at top and bottom. But I shot the event with scotch tape on my LCD display, keeping the action in the center so I could crop it, instead of letterboxing it. How do I do that? And even more difficult, in some segments I can only afford to crop it a little, and have black bars but they will be thinner than just the default letterboxing. Any tips?
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5 Replies
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Change your project Properties (File – Properties) to NTSC DV (720×480, 29.970 fps).
Then open Pan/Crop on every event on your timeline, right-click and select “Match Output Aspect”.
If that’s too much work (and you’re using Vegas Pro), grab Timeline Tools (link below – it’s free and a great utility) and use the “Match Output Aspect” found under the “Markers, Regions and FX” tab to apply this to your entire project.
https://www.nfatoys.com/moasoftwarellc/
Once you do this, your frame will be filled (i.e. no more black bars) and you can crop as desired. -
Thanks Mike… Yeah I set the project properties as you said… of course my HD clip comes in letterboxed. Then I used Track Motion and used it to zoom in on the middle of the screen, it seems to be the same thing as cropping the sides and letterbox bars.
It also gives me what I want for some other clips where I can only afford to crop about half this much off my widescreen clip…
Now I’m rendering an AVI with the “fit to screen-do not letterbox” option… hopin it works the first time!
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Track Motion is the wrong tool to use when you’re zooming in on an image or a video event.
The reason is because this tool automatically drops everything down to your project properties resolution.
That is, your 1920 x 1080 footage becomes 720 x 480 just by using this tool.
Pan/Crop keeps the original size and zooms in on that.
Try a test by zooming in a lot on something with TM and then P/C and you’ll see what I mean. -
Thanks for the tips, will do the test zoom you recommended. But as you know the output destination is 720×480 anyway so I’m puzzled why the TM tool would look worse than P/C? I literally typed in 960 x 640 in the size settings of TM. The final render goes very fast.. it doesn’t seem to be downrendering twice (for TM and for the NTSC DV output)…
thanks for any thoughts on this. -
It will look worse for the reasons I gave in my previous post but if you’re happy with it, that’s all that matters.
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