16:9 and 4:3 stuff in the same dvd project

essami wrote on 5/8/2006, 10:46 AM

Hi

Im making a dvd with music videos and one of them is 16:9. The original material I have is 16:9 letterbox. But I would like to change it so that when you watch it from 16:9 tv you see it as 16:9.

I managed to do this by changing the vegas project properties to 16:9 and by simply making the original 16:9 letterbox bigger so that it fits the 16:9 window properly.

It looks very good on 16:9 tv, but on normal 4:3 tv it looks too narrow. I would like it to be 16:9 letterbox on normal 4:3 tv and 16:9 on 16:9 tv.

Is there a better way to do this. I only have access to the original 16:9 letterbox material.

Im using DVD architect 3.0 to author the videos. Do I change the project settings to Widescreen in DVD architect? And in this case will it show the 4:3 stuff properly? or is there a way to tell the program that this video is 4:3 and this one is 16:9?

Thank you!

sami

Comments

JohnnyRoy wrote on 5/8/2006, 10:23 PM

If you have video that is already letterboxed then you should set your Vegas project for 16:9 and apply a 16:9 crop to the video in the Pan/Crop settings to remove the letterbox. Then render with one of the Widescreen templates.

In DVD Architect you can make your project as 4:3 or 16:9 depending on how you want your menus to be displayed. You can mix media in the project and your DVD player should play it back correctly. I usually leave my DVD Architect project 4:3 so my menus are 4:3 even though my content is 16:9 and it all works out fine.

~jr

essami wrote on 5/9/2006, 2:18 AM

Thanks for the info!

One question more: My 16:9 letterbox is not exactly 16:9 letterbox so if I do the change from pan/crop it leaves a bit of black on the left and right. Is there a difference in quality if I resize the video with Track motion to fit perfectly?

Thanks!

Sami

JohnnyRoy wrote on 5/9/2006, 4:53 AM

I normally would not use Track Motion for this job. Just adjust the Pan/Crop until it crops out all the black. I don’t think it will make a difference in this case because the original resolution is already 720x480 so the results will probably be the same, but in general, aspect modification should be done by cropping.

~jr

bStro wrote on 5/9/2006, 6:51 AM

I'm going to guess that the footage you're working with was originally film (ie, this is from a DVD of a movie)? Film is usually either 1.85:1 or 2.35:1 rather than 16:9, which is why DVDs of films often still letterboxing even on widescreen televisions. If you really want to conver the video to 16:9, then apply a 16:9 crop but then adjust it (you'll want to turn off "Lock Aspect Ratio" -- icon on the left, rectangle with an arrow in the bottom corner). Also change "Maintain Aspect Ratio" to No . Note that this will distort your image some. How much depends on what your sources aspect ratio is.

Otherwise, just crop to 16:9, leaving the slight letterboxing and live with it. :)

I wouldn't use track motion for this, either.

Rob

essami wrote on 5/9/2006, 9:23 AM

The footage is my own Super16mm material.
Thank you for the info! I'll try to manage with the pan/crop!

Sami