[John Rofrano]

> What is happening here? I guess I’m doing something wrong.

You are not doing anything wrong. HDV 1028×720 is 16:9 aspect while PAL Widescreen is not really 16:9. Do the math. 720 / 9 = 80 and 80 * 16 = 1280. So 1280×720 is 16:9. For PAL Widescreen 576 / 9 = 64 and 64 * 16 = 1024. Since PAL doesn’t use square pixels you have to multiply 720 * 1.4568 PAR which is 1048.896 which does not equal 1024! So PAL widescreen is not 16:9. It would need to be 1024×576 to be 16:9 but it’s roughly 1049×576.

> Is there a way to render this in PAL widescreen without the sidebars?

You need to crop your entire project to PAL widescreen aspect. The easiest way is to open a new project, set it to PAL Widescreen, drop the HDV project in as a nested project, open Pan/Crop on the nested veg and select Match Output Aspect, then render to PAL Widescreen.

~jr

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

[John Rofrano]

Yea, I met Les at NAB 2008 this year at the Sony booth and he said they were just getting into Vegas. He no longer edits all of his own footage like he did in the beginning but he said his editors were very happy with using Vegas Pro.

~jr

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

[John Rofrano]

Yes, this is how you would pan into an HDV frame at SD resolution. This assumes that you only want a small part of the original SD frame. If you wanted the whole frame with an SD crop it is easier to change the project properties to DV Widescreen and then use the Match Output Aspect option in Pan/Crop. But if you want to pan around an HDV shot, that is the proper procedure. You might get sight black bars on the left and right edges because obviously there is no way to render 853.3 pixels (it has to be a whole number but can’t because DV widescreen aspect does not equal HDV widescreen exactly).

~jr

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

[John Rofrano]

I believe they will both give you the same video quality. I would use the AVCHD template because it includes audio and therefore is one less step in the process. You might want to try both and see if you can see a difference in video quality but I would bet that you can’t.

~jr

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

[John Rofrano]

> After they are all converted, though… How do I go about replacing the clips in my project?

Go to the Project Media tab and find a video that you have a replacement file for. Then right-click that video in the Project Media and select Replace… and point to the AVI file that you just rendered. This will replace the file everywhere that it is used in the project. Do this for all of the files you re-rendered.

> And also, what should I do about the generated media thats in the timeline?

Nothing. Vegas loves it’s own generated media. No problems there.

> CPU Speed :: Required: 1800 MHz :: Found: 1399 MHz[PROBLEM]
> OS :: Required: Windows (R):: Found: Win Vista [PROBLEM]

Well… a 1.5Ghz processor is really underpowered to be doing video work. Especially a lot of compositing or using highly compressed WMV formats like you are. It’s just warning you of that and the fact that it doesn’t like Vista.

Since there is nothing you can do about either of those, I would ignore it.

~jr

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

[John Rofrano]

You would need a script like Ultimate S Pro or Excalibur to do this on a large number of events.

It is not recommended that you change the media properties to something other than what the media actually is. Vegas is correctly detecting that still images are progressive. Telling Vegas that they are interlaced when they clearly are not may cause unwanted side-effects (although you seem to be getting the desired results you may be loosing vertical resolution?)

How big are these images? Try scaling them down to the project resolution if you are not zooming into them or 2x the project resolution if you are.

~jr

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

[John Rofrano]

The third icon from the right on the top of the preview window turns them on and off (it’s a toggle)

~jr

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

[John Rofrano]

No, the timecode is always white on black but if you add the timecode to a piece of black generated media above the track and also add a Sony Mask Generator, it will key out the black leaving you with just the timecode on a transparent background.

~jr

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

[John Rofrano]

> How do I check what settings my project is in?

In Vegas use File | Properties… or Alt+Enter to bring up the Project Properties window. This will tell you the video and audio properties of your project.

> Sorry if that’s a stupid question…

The only stupid question is the one you don’t ask. If it’s worth asking… it deserves an answer. (that’s how we all learn) 😉

~jr

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

[John Rofrano]

Actually you don’t want WMV as the output container because you are trying to make AVI files. If your project is NTSC try these settings:

1. Output Container: avi
2. Output Video Codec: M-JPEG
3. Output Audio Codec: WAV-(pcm 16 little-endian)

[x] MEncoder

Video: (no change)
Aspect: 4:3
Frame/Sec: 29.976

Audio: (no checks)
Sample Freq: 48000
Channels: 2

This should give you a file that can be rendered easily in Vegas. You should try and match the properties of the source files as closely as possible. If you project is PAL use 5:4 aspect and 25 fps instead.

~jr

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