-
Mixing 4×3 & 16×9 in a project
I’m working on a high school basketball highlight video for college coaches. Some footage is 4×3 and some is 16×9 (the media properties show it as 352×480 and appears horizontally squashed in my preview window).
If I leave my project in 704×480 and make DVDs will the DVD player expand the 352×480 portion? Or should the project be set as widescreen with the 4×3 footage masked with bars on the side?
The majority of the footage is in 4×3. I’ll probably run a test this afternoon and see what happens but I wonder how others approach this issue…
-
9 Replies
-
What I like to do in this situation, is make the whole project in 16:9, but leave the 4:3 in its normal form without stretching it. This way, the 4:3 won’t look squashed or stretch.
I also will make some sort of graphics that are related to the prject and use them to fill the horizontal black bars on the sides where the 4:3 footage won’t fill. That way, if the project is being viewd on a wide screen tv, there is something else to look at other then black/grey fill bars. And if the project is being viewd in 4:3, it simpley won’t show the graphics because its not in the viewable area.
-
I like the solution but I guess I’m having a problem understanding a fundamental issue of aspect ratios.
My normal DV footage is 720×480 with a pixel aspect ratio of .9091. My DV widescreen project parameter is 720×480 with a pixel aspect ratio of 1.2121. My 16×9 footage shows up in Vegas as 352×480 with an aspect ratio of 1.8182.
The DVD player must display all these videos in the right size but when I make a graphic in Photoshop what size do I make it…720×480 would come in 4:3.
Would the workflow be the same if I’m working for web delivery (if i don’t have a DVD player to adjust the pixel aspect ratios?)
-
Not to sure about web delivery… not into that much.
When you say your footage shows up in Vegas as 352×480, are you looking at the ratio that the priview display shows? Because thats only the ratio that your priviewer window is showing, not what the atcual ratio of the video itself.
The best thing to do, is start up Vegas. Goto file, properties (for the project properties).
Set the template to NTSC Widescreen (729×480, 29.970fps) and the pixel count to whatever the highest in the project will be (I am guessing 1.2121).
Whenever you have the widescreen footage up, simpley leave it as is and do your edits accordinly. When the 4:3 footage comes in, apply a graphic on each side where the black bars appear. Unfortunatly, I am not sure what size your grappics should be. I have a friend who makes mine for me. But this trick is used on many HD braodcasts where a lot of 4:3 footage clashes with the new 16:9 widescreen footage.
I hope this helps a bit… I am somewhat amiture to all this still…
John Lockwood
New To Pro Video; Needs major help! -
[John Lockwood] “When you say your footage shows up in Vegas as 352×480, are you looking at the ratio that the priview display shows? Because thats only the ratio that your priviewer window is showing, not what the atcual ratio of the video itself”
No…thats what has me confused too…that’s the media properties…so in the project the video looks squashed horizontaly. The video was captured from a widescreen DVD…I think thats why it has the weird pixel aspect ratio…I’m hoping a DVD player will play it properly even though it looks weird in my project…I’m about to render out a piece for a test…..I’ll put a 16×9 graphic in the background so see how it looks on the transition from 4×3 to 16×9
-
Good luck with it friend. Hope I helped a little. This all is a very large learning process for me as well. I got a lot more to do of course, even after playing with this stuff for 4 years.
John Lockwood
New To Pro Video; Needs major help! -
Put your 16×9 footage on a 16×9 project. Put your 4×3 on the same timeline.
Now, rigt click on the little square (pan/crop) on the 4×3 clip. When the window opens on the top, click on the (untitled) when window opens select 16×9 widescreen. This will put black on the top and bottom of your 4×3. You will loose some footage on the top and bottom, but usually it’s OK even if you did not plan for cutting off the top and bottom.
JK -
My problem seems to be that the 16×9 footage doesn’t stretch out to the full size. Is it supposed to come in at 352×480?
When I put that footage onto a 16×9 project it stays in a 4×3 schmushed format. The original DVD plays in 16×9, though….
-
In that case, right click on the “schmushed” footage,
go properities->media->pixel aspect ratio->change it to wide screen. -
That was a good clue John…I think I found the issue…in the media properties box there was a check box “Maintain Aspect Ratio” that needed to be unchecked. Maybe thats what you were referring to…but at least I found it.
I don’t know how many times I looked in Media Proerties…but I kept going to the Media Tab..this was on the Video Event tab. As soon as I unchecked the box the clip transformed to wide screen.
Now what I don’t understand is why the clip imported as 352×480…first time I’ve seen that…
At least now I can finish the job…thanks for the help guys…
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up