MiniDV transfer incorrect aspect ratio

[Graham Bernard]

1] Don’t rely on VCL player seeing the 16×9 flag – always catches me out!

2] Have you matched your Project properties to your Media?

3] Check your Media Properties. Does it reveal a 16×9 value?

4] What do you see in the VEgas Preview? 16×9? I do when I have 16×9 media on timeline. And that WAS captured using the SONY VidCap s/w.

Try another player – MS Windows Media Player. That plays a 16×9 straight off the bat. I’d be querying VLC player rather than SONY VidCap.

Grazie

[John Rofrano]

Everything Graham said is correct. I wouldn’t trust any media player to interpret non-square pixels formats correctly. All that counts is what you see in the Vegas preview.

I transfer video from my JVC GR-D850 miniDV camcorder to Vegas Movie Studio Platnum 9.0b (via firewire), it created a bunch of .avi which I thought are native uncompressed files

Just to be accurate, your camera compresses the files to DV which is about 5:1 compression. The Vegas capture program is just copying the DV files from the tape to your hard drive bit-for-bit. So the capture is lossless. Whatever is on the camera, is now on your hard drive with whatever flags the camera used for the video. This has nothing to do with Vegas interpreting anything; it’s just a file copy. You never had nor will have uncompressed video.

~jr

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

[Chung Chau]

1] Don’t rely on VCL player seeing the 16×9 flag – always catches me out!
The VLC Player default to 4:3, but from config. I can change it to 16:9, The is also true using DivX player.

2] Have you matched your Project properties to your Media?
Yes in project properties I have selected DV widescreen or something.

3] Check your Media Properties. Does it reveal a 16×9 value?
Do you mean the .avi file property? I did not see any aspect ration setting.

4] What do you see in the VEgas Preview? 16×9? I do when I have 16×9 media on timeline. And that WAS captured using the SONY VidCap s/w.
When I preview in Vegas it is 16:9

Try another player – MS Windows Media Player. That plays a 16×9 straight off the bat. I’d be querying VLC player rather than SONY VidCap.
You’re correct when I play using WMP it has correct 16:9

[Chung Chau]

Hi John,
Can you tell me what format or template I should use for rendering the .avi files for best quality? Thanks

[John Rofrano]

Can you tell me what format or template I should use for rendering the .avi files for best quality?

The best template will depend on how you will deliver it. For archive use DV AVI. For DVD delivery use MPEG2. For Internet delivery use Sony AVC. It all depends on how you plan to deliver. the direct answer to your question is DV AVI since it’s the same format/quality as the source.

~jr

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

[Jill Baangra]

Further to this question…

If the miniDV recording is hidef – what template do we use then to import to Sony Vegas in its original source format? When I import it…it comes across as m2t files instead of AVI. However I have heard that M2T is compressed and not good for editing.

Thanks

[John Rofrano]

If the miniDV recording is hidef – what template do we use then to import to Sony Vegas in its original source format?

HD on miniDV is called HDV. You should use one of the HDV project templates. For example if you are in an NTSC country you would use the HDV 1080-60i (1440×1080, 29.970 fps) template.

When I import it…it comes across as m2t files instead of AVI. However I have heard that M2T is compressed and not good for editing.

M2T is an MPEG2 Transport Stream and is the native format that HDV cameras shoot. This is the highest quality video that you can get from the miniDV tape. The camera adds the compression so there is no way to capture without it once it has been comitted to tape.

Most modern computers (dual core / quad core) can edit this easily. If you are going to do a lot of post production work, you might want to transcode it to an intermediary like CineForm that will hold up better to multiple renders. Otherwise, it’s perfectly fine to work with the native M2T files in Vegas.

~jr

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

[Emily Jones]

The converted files are automatically viewed as 4:3 Aspect Ratio but it should be 16:9. If I manually change Aspect Ratio in for example VLC it plays fines else it looks “squezed” with black bars on right and left side.