Creative Communities of the World Forums

The peer to peer support community for media production professionals.

Activity Forums VEGAS Pro Is it possible to render 16:9 HDV in 4:3 HD?

  • Is it possible to render 16:9 HDV in 4:3 HD?

    Posted by Spike Carpenter on September 1, 2013 at 2:04 pm

    So I made an old silent movie for my wedding (Old Hollywood theme). I shot it on the Canon hv40 in 24p 16:9 HD. Because 4:3 was, of course, the standard in the silent days, I want to turn this widescreen footage into a 4:3 project. However, I still want to maintain the highest video quality possible. Is there such a thing as HD 4:3? I’m assuming there is, otherwise how would studios release Blu-rays of movies like CASABLANCA.

    So far, I have cropped each and every video clip to 4:3 and added film grain. However, when I render the project to 1440×1080 24p 1.333 PAR Blu-ray settings (with letterboxing), I notice that the film grain extends onto the black bars on the left and right of the video frame. I only want the grain to exist on the video itself.

    What am I doing wrong? Is my PAR correct?

    *Using Sony Vegas 10

    John Rofrano replied 12 years, 8 months ago 2 Members · 5 Replies
  • 5 Replies
  • John Rofrano

    September 3, 2013 at 1:28 am

    [Spike Carpenter] “What am I doing wrong?”

    You need to set your project to be 4:3. As long as your project is 16:9, the effects will cover the entire 16:9 frame. Make your project 4:3 and then render 16:9 with pillarboxing and the FX will stay within the 4:3 frame of the project.

    ~jr

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

  • Spike Carpenter

    September 3, 2013 at 1:32 am

    Where can I change the project to 4:3? Project properties? Could you walk me through it step by step? I tried making this change before but didn’t see a setting labeled “4:3.”

  • John Rofrano

    September 8, 2013 at 12:08 pm

    [Spike Carpenter] ” Where can I change the project to 4:3? Project properties?”

    Yes, the Project Properties is where you can change this.

    [Spike Carpenter] “I tried making this change before but didn’t see a setting labeled “4:3.””

    That’s because there is no such thing as HD 4:3. HD is 16:9. You must deliverer your 4:3 content in a 16:9 format with black bars on the sides (know as “pillar-boxing”).

    [Spike Carpenter] “Could you walk me through it step by step?”

    Without knowing what you have already set up it is difficult but here are the steps assuming you are in an NTSC country (if you are oin a PAL country use the PAL equivalent):

    1. Open Project Properties (Alt+Enter)
    2. Select the Template: HDV 1080-60i (1440×1080, 29.970 fps)
    3. Change the Pixel Aspect Ratio to 1.0000 (Square) (this will make your project 4:3)
    4. Press OK
    5. Open Pan/Crop on each and every event and right-click in the pan/crop area and select Match Output Aspect. (this will make your events 4:3)

    I did some tests and here’s what I found. If you add your FX to the events, my suggestion with changing the project properties will work. If, however, you add any FX to the Track, it will not work and the entire frame will be affected as before.

    The only way around this that I can see is to change the project properties to 4:3 as shown above, then drop that project into a 16:9 project to render and then only the 4:3 section will have any FX. This is called a “nested project”. Just drag and drop your .veg file into a new HD 16:9 project and render from there.

    ~jr

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

  • Spike Carpenter

    September 8, 2013 at 12:56 pm

    I’ll bet you just solved my problem. I did, in fact, add the film grain to the track instead of the individual events to save time. I will go back and make this change and let you know if it works.

    Another quick question in the meantime: If I changed the project pixel aspect ratio to 1.000 and then cropped each clip to 4:3, is that the same as what you suggested? That is, right clicking and selecting the match output option.

  • John Rofrano

    September 8, 2013 at 3:56 pm

    [Spike Carpenter] “If I changed the project pixel aspect ratio to 1.000 and then cropped each clip to 4:3, is that the same as what you suggested?”

    If your project is already 1440×1080 PAR 1.3333 and you change the PAR to 1.000, then yes it will have the same effect.

    ~jr

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

We use anonymous cookies to give you the best experience we can.
Our Privacy policy | GDPR Policy