PAL is a bit screwy in Vegas.

ALL the templates defaults to lower field first, which here is Oz is worthless, unless upper field first no can play on Aussie TVs.

Before i had worked out how to fix the custom button (click and nothing happened) this meant i would never render anything in PAL (my TV does that 2nd rate NTSC)

Begpie - I don't understand what you're saying.

PAL DV IS lower field first - that's how its recorded, that's how it is.

I've never had to change that setting, unless I'm rendering progressive (no fields) for PC playback only.

>>>PAL DV IS lower field first<<<

I am in NTSC land *but* I have seen PAL come up as upper field in many cases. I believe that is the default for Avid PAL settings. Is it different for PAL - Lo band vs. PAL - Hi band? And what of SECAM? (Which I don't believe VV does that anyway..but just thought I would toss that in if anyone knew)

I'm no AVID user so I'll have to defer to others on what it does but as far as I know anything PAL is lower field first, thats from VHS to Betacam and that includes all PAL transmission formats.

SECAM is pretty much PAL with a bit more resolution, almost everything in SECAM land will play PAL, that makes sense as it is literally a small island in the middle of the European ocean (sorry, my apologies to my Russian comrades). Just to confuse the issue there is also metaSECAM, I think its SECAM with a PAL color burst, I've got a VCR that will play and record it but will not play real SECAM, it drops the colour info.

I'm no expert, but it's not the "PAL" that makes it lower or upper field first, but the recording mode/codec.

For instance, as I said, PAL DV is Lower, But PAL MJPEG - and possibly other analogue sources, is Upper field first.

I don't understand why, but that's how it's been ....

PAL MPEG for making DVDs or SVCD etc is UPPER field first.

DV is LOWER field first, regardless of NTSC or PAL.

So when you go to render an MPEG to use in DVD Lab or DVDA you MUST have the output as upper field if you want watch your movie on an interlaced PAL TV.

MY TV handles NTSC/PAL in either progressive or interlaced - my XBOX does NTSCp to the YPP input and my DVD does PALi to the YCC inputs - TRUST me, if oyu render your PAL svcd/DVD with lower field first as soon as the shot pans or zooms it goes haywire with lines and stuff everywhere.

In Vegas 3/4 the defaults for these outputs are set to lower field first - which doesnt work, as i said above, and when your install is screwy and you cant use the custom button this is a REAL pain.

Are these settings intended for people who want to render PAL on US TV sets or something?

Does any of this really matter? I have never had any problems with my TV in any way.. it's a 3 year old Philips.. not widescreen... plays PAL and NTSC without a problem! I don't get what you all are discussing really.

Your TV picture is not scanned "progressively" from top to bottom (like your PC screen), but rather is made up of two "fields." The first field just scans every other line, and then the next field takes care of the lines that were missed the first time. These fields can be called Top or Bottom, Field 1 and Field 2, or Even and Odd.

When working with video, some programs give the operator a choice in which field comes first. Like many things in life, there is no logic to it sometimes.

All I can say is that, if your TV image on a home TV looks normal, your field order is proper. If your field order is reversed, any TV images involving motion or panning will look horrible, with a lot of "judder." It's very obvious, so if the video you are making looks normal on a TV, don't give it a second thought--you're doing it the right way.

farss,
I think I understand. But maybe you can clarify a little more?
I've seen posts debating whether this or that camera shoots "real" 16:9 or merely crops a 4:3 image (which I'm told mine does). From what you say that should amount to the same thing, at least in PAL.
I also wonder if shooting 16:9 on my camera (Sony TRV 950) would make a real difference from shooting 4:3 if both shots go into Vegas for a 16:9 project?

Tor

I have never changed to upper field first when I render MPEG and everything looks fine on my Sony projector (my only TV). Is the projector (12HT) doing something clever to fix my stuffup? If so, that's exciting, because it means I can probably get better quality video than I already have by changing to upper field first and not making my projector work overtime to clean up after me. I wonder!

Tors,
thats a very different topic. In general you're correct, very few consumer cameras shoot 100% 'real' 16:9 (whatever that is!). What they do is effectively mask the CCD to give a 16:9 image. This is still recorded to tape at 720x576 so what I said before still applies.

However just because something is encoded onto tape at that res doesn't mean the image has that resolution, its never going to have more than that but it can easily have a lot less. The lens will limit the max res as will the CCD(s). So when they mask off part of the CCD there's simply less pixels available to resolve the image shining onto it. Believe it or not most cameras get an analogue signal from the CCDs, this is then encoded back to a digital stream to be recorded. The encoder may encode the analogue signal at 720x576 but thats no better than the analogue signal it was fed.

The manufacturers are aware of this issue, particularly now that more consumers want to shoot 16x9. One solution is to use a native 16x9 block, that can have a downside, it gets masked when switched to 4:3. The trick they are now trying is to have enough pixels on the CCD to handle both situations. The TRV80 is an example of this approach. But of course there's no simple fix, more pixels means less light sensitivity and hence more noise at low light for a given CCD size. That's why a lot of pro cameras have big CCDs and fewer pixels than consumer cameras.

Thanks, farss.
I see why there are so many vague posts about this; it's an area of plenty compromises.
I'll take the slow road and shoot some test footage on both settings. Then I'll feed them to Vegas and see how they act. I suspect I may not be able to see any difference, and with the "scientific" difference being small and based on compromises - I suppose I'll end up with whtever gives me the most easy working situation or the most fun.
Tor

TorS,
to be quite honest it's not going to make any difference to your working environment. If you shoot 16:9 just set your project properties to PAL/NTSC DV 16:9/4:3 as appropriate. As far as I am aware the only difference is so VV knows how to drive the preview monitor. I guess effects that have a geometry component are also affected, otherwise you'd get ovals instead of circles. Beyond that don't start fretting about pixel aspect ratios etc, it'll just keep you awake at night when the good fokes at SoFo took care of it all for us.

One really good tip I should pass on. If your going to start shooting at different aspect ratios ALWAYS include a shot of an aspect ratio card or if you use a clapper have a big circle on it somewhere. Just writing 16:9 on it doesn't cut it. You might think thats what you've shot at but the camera might have other ideas or whatever. With a circle in shot you'll know what you did shoot. If you don't have a card with a thick circle on it a shot of a car wheel etc will do.

You can waste a lot of time working out what the AR was long after you've shot something, this becomes a real issue if you decide to start letterboxing up/down to say 14:9, its pretty hard to tell the difference between 16:9 and 14:9 without a good visual cue.

Right. Thanks again farss.
Tor