Rendering in aspect ratio 1.85 has weird results

[John Rofrano]

[Riccardo Leone] ” I have done all the editing process letterboxing the project (I created a .png file with two black stripes -top and bottom- of 21 pixels each). I’ve done all the editing, and now it’s rendering time.”

For future reference, that was the wrong way to do this. You should create a project that has a 1.85 aspect and edit at the correct aspect. That would have avoided all this mess.

[Riccardo Leone] “Well, I want to render two versions of the project, both in .mp4: one in 1920×1038 and the other 1280×692. Sure, I could leave the film letterboxed, but rendering in 1.85 didn’t sound to difficult to do. Therefore I chose that size in the custom settings. However, I get an unwanted result: the output is still showing some black stripes, but sometimes above and sometimes underneath the images. No image is in a nice good-looking 1.85 format. That really doesn’t make sense to me. Any chances you guys know what I am doing wrong?”

I’m guessing that your masking wasn’t perfect. Whatever is was it doesn’t matter, the fix is the same.

Change your project properties to 1920×1038. Check to make sure all the video is positioned correctly. Delete the mask track (it should no longer be visible anyway) and render to 1920×1038.

Always work in the aspect you plan to deliver in. This avoids surprises later when rendering. Never create a black letterbox mask unless you intent to deliver with black bars in your video.

~jr

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

[Riccardo Leone]

Thanks for answering.
I tried that, but when changing the project settings I just get some black bands on the left and right side of the image because the footage gets reduced in size. How to avoid that?

[John Rofrano]

[Riccardo Leone] “I tried that, but when changing the project settings I just get some black bands on the left and right side of the image because the footage gets reduced in size. How to avoid that?”

Did you crop your footage? I assume this is happening because now the crop is wrong in the proper aspect project. You may have to adjust or remove the cropping.

The way to avoid it, of course, is to start with the proper aspect project in the first place instead of the black bar overlay.

If this is too much work, you may have to live with the original project and some black bars on rendering.

~jr

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

[Riccardo Leone]

All right. I can go on with the letterbox, I don’t mind too much. It’s just that I was used to another NLE and rendering in 1.85 was such an easy thing that I thought I could do it in Vegas with little trouble.

By the way, I tried to adjust the cropping already, but the lateral stripes don’t disappear.

Thanks.

[John Rofrano]

[Riccardo Leone] “All right. I can go on with the letterbox, I don’t mind too much. It’s just that I was used to another NLE and rendering in 1.85 was such an easy thing that I thought I could do it in Vegas with little trouble.”

You can do it in Vegas with little trouble. Set your project to 1.85 and render to 1.85. That’s it! There’s nothing else to do. You made it difficult by adding the letterbox overlay and cropping. Vegas doesn’t need any of that.

[Riccardo Leone] “By the way, I tried to adjust the cropping already, but the lateral stripes don’t disappear.”

That’s probably because you didn’t change the aspect of the crop. Once you set your project up correctly to 1.85 you can open Pan/Crop, right-click and select Match Output Aspect and there will never be a black bar. The crop will match the project aspect perfectly.

~jr

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

[Riccardo Leone]

Sure. What I meant was that in my past experience (with a different NLE) I found easy to render in 1.85 after letterboxing, and I thought I could do it with Vegas as well. My bad. In this peculiar case, to be honest, I started editing thinking that I wanted to keep the letterbox, and I changed my mind afterwards. So I was looking just for a way out.

I did already Match Output Aspect (following the easy workflow suggested by Aleksey in this post https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/24/957575) but still couldn’t get rid of the lateral bars. I tried several different things with no results.

[John Rofrano]

If you explain what you did perhaps we can figure it out. I assume your project was 1920×1080 and your media is the same. When I change a 1920×1080 project to 1920×1038 with 1920×1080 media there are no black bars anywhere. Of course, there is also no cropping. Perhaps you just need to remove the cropping.

There is also a setting in the properties to allow Vegas to adjust the media aspect to fit the project. (I forget the exact name and I’m using my iPad right now so I can’t check) You might want to check if this is set to on. This may only affect new media that is dropped on the timeline but it’s a handy setting to know about when you are working on odd aspects.

~jr

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

[Riccardo Leone]

Ok, I’ll start from the beninning (creating a new project) so maybe it will be easier to find out what is my mistake.

I create a new project sized 1920×1038. I then import a footage shot at 1920×1080. Dropping the file, it creates 2 thin black bars on both sides (or at least, that is what I see on the preview window). It is maybe worth to notice that the footage has lost pixels at the top and at the bottom (as it should be).

I therefore open the pan/crop, right click on the media, Match Output Aspect. The bars are still there.

However, if render the footage (at 1920×1038) I notice that..there are no bars on the side! So why the heck there are bars on my preview window?

Thanks for the help.

[Riccardo Leone]

Also, it may be worth knowing that if I put a solid color underneath the video layer (let’s say red), the side bars turn red, meaning that what I see is a random black bar, but it is what actually lies under the video track.

Moreover, another question: how come that if I have a 1920×1038 project and I import a 1920×1080 footage I cannot move the image up and down to “include” in the shot what I want, but the software automatically crops the footage on the top and on the bottom?

[John Rofrano]

[Riccardo Leone] “I create a new project sized 1920×1038. I then import a footage shot at 1920×1080. Dropping the file, it creates 2 thin black bars on both sides (or at least, that is what I see on the preview window). It is maybe worth to notice that the footage has lost pixels at the top and at the bottom (as it should be).”

Open your project properties and make sure that Adjust source media to better match project or render settings is checked before you add any media to the project. I have that checked and I’m not seeing any black bars when I drop 1920×1080 media into a 1920×1038 project.

~jr

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