There would be no benefit to rerendering in widescreen. In fact, the image quality will be worse because the pictures and video will all be squeezed into fewer pixels and then stretched back out by the projector.

You could set the project properties to match the projector's vertical resolution (perhaps 720 instead of 480?) which will allow the still images to look sharper. It won't help the video sections though. You would also need a higher bitrate to accomodate the higher resolution. Your laptop can probably handle playing back up to 30Mbps, but i would keep it under 15Mbps to avoid possible stuttering.

Since you have 8 different .veg files you'll end up with 8 separate output files. You can cue them all to play sequentially in Windows Media Player. There will be a slight pause each time the file changes, and Media Player tends to leave the last frame on the screen until the next file starts playing, so you may want to make sure each section ends in a fade to black. You'll also want to start the first file with 5 to 10 seconds of black and end the last one with the same so that you have time to pause on black before switching to the projector. Of course, if you have Vegas 6 you can simply drag all 8 .veg files onto the timeline one after the other and render them as a single output file.

My concern about the projector is whether it will know you are playing 4:3 material or not. If the technicians can set the projector to 4:3 have them do so. Otherwise it's possible that your video will be stretched out to fill the screen. If they can't make the switch and the stretching is going to happen then creating a widescreen file with black bars on the sides might be your only option. I still wouldn't bother altering your projects though. Instead, i would render all the files to uncompressed 982x720 avi with a pixel aspect ratio of 1.0 (assuming the projector is 1280x720, if not, do the appropriate math), then creating a new 1280x720 PAR 1.0 project and adding the uncompressed files to it. Render this new project to 1280x720 PAR 1.0 WMV at 15Mbps. This will avoid any image or pixel stretching by the projector.

Then again, if your laptop screen is only 1024x768 then don't bother making the resolution any higher than 1024x576 as anything above that will be a waste.

And ... i'm still suffering my nasty ear infection and my brain still hasn't rebooted. So it's quite possible that everything i just posted is delusional drivel. Consider accordingly. ;)

As a former teacher who used AV media often, I say leave it alone.

You've answered your own question by writing -
" I really can't spend much more time on this. It is perfectly acceptable as is ... "

You've tested it in projection and you already know it looks good so let it be.
On the day of the banquet, test again and make sure that they're not stretching it from 4:3 to 16:9 or your tall, lanky football players are all going to look pretty chunky. This kind of distortion is showing up on broadcast television all the time and I find it really annoying.

Also, check your audio playback levels from the middle of the banquet floor.

I would play it back directly from a DVD and have a spare copy on hand as well. and maybe a back up DVD player in the car - just in case.

My only comment is thar 38 minutes is a L-O-N-G presentation. However, the stars of theshow are also the audience and their families so you'll probably be okay.

About 7 years ago (Pre NLE ), I did a wedding video for friends as their wedding gift. It included the ceremony, reception, guest comments and growing-up pictures. It took me three weeks to edit using many thousands of dollars worth of equipment. That couple has watched their video almost 20 times since then and it runs 50 minutes.

Be sure to give yourself screen credit - you've earned it.

You have done a very nice thing for your sons and their teammates.
They will always remember you for it.

duraflex,

This is a girl's field hockey team. Making them look "pretty chunky" would be a risk to my life.

I absolutely and positively agree on the length. However, it really is 8 separate sections and doesn't "feel" that long. I've made my 2 daughters watch it and they were blown away. Both agreed not to cut anything out.

I hadn't thought of rendering the 8 veg files to a single avi. That's sounding pretty interesting.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

I've decided that I'm not going to try to change the DVD. I know it works and looks fine. I would, though, like to bring my laptop and try to play it as a single video file if that would make it look even better.

As I said, I'm an amateur. What does PAR 1.0 mean? Is the best plan to render the veg files as uncompressed avi and then the whole project as wmv? I have a relatively new Dell Latitude D810 but don't want to choke it with a huge file.

Thanks again.

PAR is Pixel Aspect Ratio. 1.0 means square pixels. Most computer screens and projectors use square pixels, which means they are the same width as they are high. 4:3 DV video and MPEG files on a DVD (in NTSC areas, anyway) use a PAR of 0.90909... which means that the pixels are slightly narrower than they are tall. Media Player and the DVD player have to fit these non-square pixels in the video file to fit the actual physical pixels on the screen which can cause some distortion. 16:9 DV and DVDs use the same number of pixels in the image frame, but stretch them out wider to fill the wider frame.

Your laptop should be able to breeze through 15Mbps, as long as it's reading from the hard drive.

Thanks !

I apologize for being so dense.

I've rendered the first 4 veg files to uncompressed avi 982x720 PAR 1.0 and have 4 huge files. Why wouldn't I just line up the 8 veg files and render directly to 1280x720 PAR 1.0 WMV at 15Mbps?

Thanks again.

Because if you do that, your project will be come widescreen and Vegas will attempt to adjust all media to fit. You will probably have to go through every event and manually recrop them.

Thanks again.

I don't have enough hard drive space to make all the uncompressed avi files. I guess I'll just be playing the DVD.

Thanks to everyone for all the help.

I would recommend against the uncompressed. Too much throughput on the hard drive, chances of glitches/hiccups on the playback are high.

A high rate wmv or other high quality codec would be a better balance of CPU decoding and hard drive data retrieval.

I believe chienworks' suggestion involved uncompressed files as an intermediate step, with a wmv file for playback.

Can I render 4:3 veg files any other way for software playback that would look better than the DVD, but not be too much of a strain on the laptop for playback? Or am I better off playing the 4:3 DVD on the (necessarily) widescreen?

I would use the DVD for now: You've previewed it, it looks good; you're daughters said they thought it looked great. So that is you're main delivery.

You might chalk this one up as "the next time, I'll do...". There are many ways to do the same thing in Vegas.

In the meantime, if you have Vegas version 6 and the time, you can line up the veg files on the timeline and render as you mentioned previously. Then try to get to the banquet early to see compare the two versions prior to the presentation.