HD video on 4:3 screen

[John Rofrano]

I assume you need to render to a format that uses square pixels. You didn’t say how you rendered the final output for Media Shout. Try rendering HD 1280x720p. A 1280x720p WMV file might be a good choice. This should display as letterboxed. I would ask the people who own Media Shout what formats it likes best.

If that gets squished then you may need to produce a 4:3 letterbox version out of Vegas. The easiest way to create that would be to drop the 16:9 .veg file into a 4:3 project and render as 4:3. It will burn the letterbox into 4:3 aspect.

~jr

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

[Fred Williams]

Thank you for your help, maybe my head will stop hurting now. I think using the 4:3 template will be the best way to handle it. I don’t have it in front of me, but I assume there is a 4:3 templte in this version of Vegas. If I understand you correctly, then using the
HD 1280x720p templete and 1.000 pixils will show as letterbox on the screen correct. Or is it the 1.333 (See I am still a little confused) Thank you so much for the help and advice. It is appriciated.

[Alex Keppler]

all you need to do is render the project as 4:3 in vegas like the last dude said. whenever you go to render usually it has 4:3 selected and you have to change to 16:9, but if you do have to change to 4:3 i think its just the “render as” button off the initial “render” screen”, then click “video” at the bottom, and one of the tabs on the screen will list the aspect ratios.

[John Rofrano]

Here is the problem: if Media Shout doesn’t understand non-square pixels and you give it a file that uses a PAR of 1.3333 it is going to display it as if the PAR is 1.0000 and the image will look vertically squished. This is why I suggested that you give it a format with a PAR of 1.0000. That way it can’t get the PAR wrong.

Having said that, it also might not be smart enough to handle widescreen ANYTHING, in which case rendering 1280x720p is not going to work either. This is why you have to ask the person who has the software or send them test files to see what the software does with it. That’s why I made the suggestion to render 4:3 video with the letterbox already added. This would be foolproof and you would be guaranteed to get letterboxed video.

You really need to talk with person who owns the software and ask them what format looks best, then render to that format.

~jr

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

[Fred Williams]

John

Thank you again. I have a call into the owner of Media Shout, just waiting for his response. One of the guys that runs the program mentioned that Media Shout likes AVI files, but he was not sure about the PAR stuff. I’ll wait till the other gentleman calls back.
Thank you for the help.
Best Regards
Fred

[Fred Williams]

Thank you for your help and advice. I’m gonna try to play aound with the Media Shout Program and see what looks the best, but like you and John stated, Just making it into 4:3 may be the best option.
Thanks

[Rick Williams]

John:

This is going to sound silly no doubt, but I am using Sony Movie platinum 9b. I can’t find any settings that say 4:3 project so I am assuming that is only in Vegas Pro. What would be a 4:3 project setting in movie studio be?

Thanks

[John Rofrano]

Not a silly question at all. The NTSC DV project setting is 4:3. The problem is that it is SD not HD. There is no HD 4:3 setting because HD is 16:9. Do you know how you are going to render your project for Media Shout? If it’s SD then NTSC DV should be fine. Otherwise see if Movie Studio will let you create a custom 4:3 project that is HD. The settings would be 1440 x 1080 PAR 1.000. You can probably start with the HDV setting and just change the PAR to 1.000.

~jr

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

[Rick Williams]

John:

Thank you. It all makes sense now. Yes Vegas Movie Studio will allow custom NTSC DV. I wll try it out and take it in to watch on media shout. I’ll let you know just for gp
Thanks again