What's wrong with using the 16:9 preset in the Event Pan/crop tool?

J--

>>> What's wrong with using the 16:9 preset in the Event Pan/crop tool? <<<

I think the poster just wants to add the black bars, not actually crop the image.

What's the difference? Adding black bars will crop the image. Converting a 4:3 image to 16:9 is going to crop it some how, right?

J--

Thanks for the Link Filmy I have always wanted a way to do this with The aspect ratio of Films.:)

>>>What's the difference? Adding black bars will crop the image. Converting a 4:3 image to 16:9 is going to crop it some how, right?<<<

Someone can explain this better than I can I am sure, but if you add black bars over the image you are still keeping the full image and resolution. If you crop 4:3 to 16:9 you are now 'blowing up' the 4:3 image to 16:9. If you were to render that out you would have less information (resolution) in the same 720x480 size and it would be 'anamorphic'. So to to have a 4:3 aspect ratio again you are again resizing this image to fit between the black bars...or letterboxed. So if the end result is really just to simulate widescreen on a 4:3 aspect you don't need to do the resize, just slap the black bars on the top and bottom.

That 16:9 preset in the Event Pan/crop tool did the job -- just shows how little i know about this program...

Filmy, one question, the thing is that black bars render as color and sometimes (especially when projected big) show as off black. To prevent that i wanted to crop it... Does it mean it would play differently on various TVs?

Also If Im reading this right (Zenote Link)By using the Zenote Plugin with Keyframes you can move the picture around the Screen so as to not lose tops of heads ect. GREAT STUFF !

"So if the end result is really just to simulate widescreen on a 4:3 aspect you don't need to do the resize, just slap the black bars on the top and bottom."

Filmy, maybe you're right. Maybe we're not communicating clearly enough. I was under the impression that using the Event pan/crop tool did just that.

"... with Keyframes you can move the picture around the Screen so as to not lose tops of heads ect."

Mark, you can do that with Event pan/crop tool, too.

J-

Jay. Yes I know You can Keyframe in Vegas.. But your also Blowing up the Picture, and losing quality. When you show this Film on a 4:3 TV The TV Will add Black bars to the Blown up version Or you will lose information off the sides

Filmys solution (Using the Zenote Plugin..) still using the 4:3 Aspect adding Black Bars AND the added Bonus of being Keyframable You can still do this in Vegas By adding Black Bars Grazie Gave Us A Link for this a while back >You will have to do a search<... But I feel Zenote Offer More Flexibility ..

How is it blowing up the image? The image is already 720 pixels wide. It can't go any wider. All you've done is cropped off the top and bottom, hence the black bars at the top and bottom.

J--

Jay I shoulda checked More thoroughly It would appear you are Correct. Im still Learning !

As we all are (still learning)!

J--

>>>How is it blowing up the image? The image is already 720 pixels wide. It can't go any wider. All you've done is cropped off the top and bottom, hence the black bars at the top and bottom.<<<

Maybe I can explain this better this way -

Take an image. Say the image is 100 DPI. So I enlarge the image - say it is 4x4 so I make it 8x8. Now the effective DPI is 50. So now lets say I take that 4x4 image and crop it so it is 2x2. Now that 2x2 image is still 100 DPI right? But if I now put that image back into a 4x4 size it is no longer 100 DPI, but 50 DPI. So if all I want to do is mask the top and bottom I can keep the 4x4 image and put a mask at the top and bottom. I still have the original image and the original DPI.

Now if you are following me here - you bring in footage at 720x480 at 4:3 aspect. All is fine and well. If you want it to be letterboxed all you have to do is just place black bars on the top and the bottom. You are not resizing anything. But when you go in and use the "crop" function you have just cut off the top and the bottom of the image. Now when you save this you are saving back to a 720x480 size but at 16:9 aspect - you are blowing that image up and loosing resolution.

For DVD th eplayer will take that 720x480 frame and, if it is 16:9 aspect, it will decompress for that. If you tell the DVD player you have a 4:3 monitor/TV is will auto-letterbox the image. If you tell the DVD player you have a 16:9 monitor/tv is will play out and decompress to that aspect. On a widescreen monitor/tv that is so equiped you can play out your 4:3 video from a video tape and just hit "zoom" and it will do the same thing as the crop fucntion Vegas - and crop the image to 16:9. Maybe that would have been a better way to explain it...the 16:9 crop sort of "zooms" the image in to fit a 16:9 screen. You also loose resolution.

I hope that is a bit more clear.

Filmy, so your whole explanation is based on a television set that is 16:9, instead of 4:3, right?

J--

Filmy I understand what you are saying But the Pan and crop keeps the image at 4:3.. Just adding the Black Bars.. IT does nothing to the Image apart from add the Bars.. You can see the picture being cut !

Then you would render out at 4:3 Not 16:9 I think this is where the Confusion May Lie. Yes ?No?

Mark, I think you have it. I'm talking about using the 16:9 preset and rendering it to 4:3. When I do that, there is no change in the image size, other than the top and bottom have been cropped.

I'm rendering it now to mpeg2 in preparation to burn to DVD. I still don't see how it's going to have an effect on the image size. It shouldn't.

I don't know how the DVD would play on a 16:9 television because I don't have one. Maybe if I set my broadcast monitor to 16:9 it will give me an idea, I don't know.

J--

The DVD plays just fine on 4:3. There is no image enlargement, and the bars are at the top and bottom of the screen.

However, when I change the monitor's ratio to 16:9, it squishes the entire image--picture and black bars! Still, there is no "enlargement" of the image taking place.

I have to presume that Filmy is talking about something that I am unaware of, which isn't too hard to imagine! I know there are other ways to get 16:9 images, but they are beyond me at this point in my experience.

J--

AAAHHHHHHHH....

:)

I thought the image croping idea would have been clear. Ok - do you use Photoshop or any other image software? Load any image into it and crop it...what happens? You have cut the image right? So you *have* changed the image size. Forget about the black bars for a second. Lets just talk about the image only. If you crop anything to the 16:9 aspect ratio in a 4:3 project, yes, you will see the black bars, but if you change the project settings to 16:9 you will see no black bars. And if you play that image out to a 4:3 aspect ratio Monitor as is th eimage will be squished, but it will fit the full frame. This is what I am saying - you are, more or less, blowing up the image.

(Speaking NTSC DV here)

720x480 = 4:3 (0.9)
720x480 = 16:9 (1.2) [Anamorphic]

So yes the frame is the size is the same but the aspect ratio is not. So when you *crop* the image you are still keeping the frame size the same but your are loosing resolution because that 16:9 image is now squished into the 720x480 frame to be unsquished later - either shrunk and letterboxed for display on a 4:3 monitor or played full on a 16:9 monitor. Yes, you do "shrink" the 16:9 aspect ratio to fit in the 4:3 image with letterbox.

As I said before if you want to get a rough idea take your raw footage and play it on a widescreen TV or Monitor that has a "zoom" setting. Play it normal and you should have your full frame 4:3 image with bars on either side. Now hit the "Zoom" button. You are now looking at the same cropped image as you would be viewing after cropping in Vegas.

Now back to the letter boxing. If you leave the 4:3 aspect ratio alone and simply put black bars on you have done nothing to the image. If you crop to 16:9 you have changed the aspect ratio and lost information. What you do when you render to 4:3 and maintain the aspect ratio you are shrinking the now anamorphic 720x480 16:9 image to fit into a 4:3 720x480 frame at the correct aspect ratio - thusly the black bars/letterbox. For DVD you would 1> crop with the 16:9 crop 2> render as 16:9 widescreen. I already explained in a post above what happens when you play from your DVD - it will auto add the letterbox. WHat you did was render *with* the letterbox thusly when you play out on a 16:9 monitor you get a squised 4:3 image. You would need to use the "zoom" function to get rid of the squished effect, and loose the letter box.

Now if none of that makes sense here is something about shooting with the 'fake' 16:9 modes that some cameras have. The same principal applies in what I have been trying to say:
It should be noted that shooting in your DV camcorder's 16:9 widescreen mode is the lowest quality method in acquiring widescreen video. This is because the camcorder crops the bottom and top of the frame then "stretches" the widescreen aspect ratio (about 25% and 360 lines) onto 480 lines, anamorphically distorting the image before recording it to tape. This results in fewer pixels, therefore reducing resolution, when the image is recorded back to tape.

And if you really feel like getting confused you can go here: http://www.uwasa.fi/~f76998/video/conversion/

I understand Filmy If you use the Pan and scan Black Bars In Vegas. For 16:9.. You are still left with 4:3 footage. When this footage is shown on a 16:9 TV, The top and Bottom are squeezed >> Its Being presented with 4:3<<< And squashes the Picture even more. So you end up with Film that looks more like 2:35:1 Cinemascope. THEN To make matters worse you still have to zoom in because there will be Black Bars On the Side now.


Your way (Using the Zenote WIDEscreen Method Is to Physically Cut the Black Bars Out So Imagine a roll of Film 4:3 WOULD have a 4:3 SHAPE and 16:9 would have 16:9 shape a Widescreen tv will Happily play the 16:9 Shape with no adjustments to the Picture.

But :)

If you want to show the Footage on a 4:3 TV Then no image quality is lost Although why would you do this when you could use Filmys method ? (I suppose it wouldent really matter for your personal use and just to show on a 4:3 TV) But the consumer would want it perhaps specifically to show on a 16:9 TV.

Okay, so it is a matter of preparing for 16:9 televisions. Fine.

Now, let me ask this... two questions... I looked through the Vegas+DVD manual (pdf) but couldn't find the process. So, using Vegas+DVD, how does one prepare the footage and the DVD to be shown on a 16:9 television?

Once that specially prepared DVD is completed, what does it look like when viewed on a 4:3 television?

I appreciate everyone's patience with me on this! Fact is, 99.9% of what I've been required to do so far has been for 4:3, so the 16:9 issue has not been something I have needed to know. Now I would like to!

J--

Jay Its Not a Vegas process, its a Standard :} Checkout The Link Filmy gave earlier for the Zenote Plugin :) Also I would go over all thats been said here and then ask Specific questions !