But I did say what format I chose. I chose pretty much EVERY single video codec listed under the .avi and .mov options. And I tried exporting with both aspect ratio 1.0 and 1.333. And NO matter what I chose, the resulted video was always square pixels instead of anamorphic. It was like the aspect ratio combo-box was not taken into account by the app when exporting.

As I said, the ONLY option that worked correctly, was when exporting for WMV.

I don't want to use the templates, I go to "Custom" because well, I need custom export (i don't export audio sometimes, for example). It's in that "custom" dialog that the 1.333 is not taken into account. Please try it. "Render as" a 1440x1080-anamorphic clip as .avi and then hit "custom", and then use the Sony codec (which is the default I believe) at the same resolution, and tell it to be aspect ratio 1.333.

Please try it. After you do that, on VMS8, the resulted 1440x1080 clip is 4:3, not 16:9. The anamorphic "bit" is not set by Vegas during the export, even if you ask it to. It is extremely frustrating because ALL my clips are HDV. The whole point I bought Vegas was to work with HDV (anamorphic by design) clips. :(

I could have gone around the bug if I was telling it to export as 1920x1080, but VMS won't allow that because true HD is reserved for the pro version. But with that bug in setting the aspect ratio, it makes VMS8 *useless* for me. I don't want to export as WMV you see (which is the ONLY export setting that WORKS), because it's lossy and because most non-Microsoft apps have A/V sync problems with WMV (they had to reverse engineer it to add support for it you see, e.g. VLC).

So, i am stuck.

Anyone tried it? I installed VMS8 on another machine, and I have the same problem -- reproducibly.

If you don't have a 1440x1080 .m2t HDV file to test, here is one: http://www.embeddedexcellence.com/vid/keeper03.m2t (47 MB)

I think you should just contact technical support directly and save yourself all this time and effort.

4eyes, I know that. All my clips are set to 16:9, even if the don't have the anamorphic bit set by their own. The problem is with the exporting, not with editing. More over, I really do not think that the bug has to do with the codec used, because it happens with ALL .avi and .mov codecs, and we very well know that codecs like cineform or Sony's codec can support widescreen just fine in the anamorphic form.

The bug is literally with the "aspect-ratio" variable in the "custom" exporting dialog not getting passed along to the encoder. I am pretty sure that the bug is literally is something as silly as a typo of the variable name on the source code, e.g. instead of "aspectratio", the programmer might erroneously carrying it over to the encoder as "aspectatio". It's possibly something as silly and easily fixed as that, but enough to render my HDV files useless and make everyone's heads look like eggs in my videos.

Dear Eugenia

You want to make your own custom settings when exporting your HDV video. And your main problem seems to be that you can’t specify what you think is the correct pixel aspect ratio (for widescreen video).

When you choose File-Render as, you have to specify “File type”, for example “avi”. You also have to specify “Template”, which defaults to “NTSC DV”. The Template defines the specific output format you want, amongst all avi file types (in this example). Ok? If you want to export to NTSC DV, you will get a 4:3 video, if you want to export to NTSC DV Widescreen, you will get 16:9 video. Ok?

So, here is the clue: IF you as an example want to export your HDV video to NTSC DV Widescreen, the correct pixel aspect ratio is 1.2121 – not 1.333333! Regardless of the pixel aspect ratio of the source files, for example photos (pixel aspect ratio = 1.0), HDV video (pixel aspect ratio = 1.333), PAL DV 4:3 (pixel aspect ratio = 1.0926), and so on.

The main point is: the output format (“Template”) defines the correct pixel aspect ratio, not the source file format!

So, if you want to export your HDV video (and maybe some photos and some progressive video clips) to NTSC DV Widescreen, you have to chose the Template NTSC DV Widescreen. THEN you can Customise this template and you can save your settings as a new template: EUGENIA NTSC DV Widescreen NO AUDIO, for example.

About the 1.333 pixel aspect ratio: this is the correct pixel aspect ratio for progressive video (1920/1440 = 1.3333), not for NTSC DV Widescreen or PAL DV Widescreen.

Best wishes,
Jøran Toresen

((PS I live in Norway, so please excuse me if my English isn’t as good as it should be, but I hope the main points are clear.)

Joran, thank you for the reply, but you are mistaken. I tried what you said, and AGAIN, I got a 4:3 video, not an anamorphic one. Besides, I want to export as HDV-custom, not NTSC Widescreen. However, I DID what you suggested. I started by choosing the NTSC widescreen template, then I hit custom, and changed to another resolution/codec etc, but again, the output video was again 4:3.

And I have a surprise for all of you who tried to refute me. I *just* tested with VMS 7. The bug DOES NOT EXIST in VMS7. Which means that this is a BRAND NEW BUG on VMS8. Unfortunately this does not help me though, because VMS7 can't read VMS8 project files here, and so I can't just switch applications to do the final rendering.

Eugenia

First, if you choose NTSC DV Widescreen without any changes (no Custom settings) and export the file, is the new dv-avi file 4:3 or 16:9?

Second, what do you mean by ”I want to export as HDV-custom”? Which template do you refer to?

Jøran Toresen

>First, if you choose NTSC DV Widescreen without any changes (no Custom settings) and export the file, is the new dv-avi file 4:3 or 16:9?

It is 16:9.

>Second, what do you mean by ”I want to export as HDV-custom”? Which template do you refer to?

HDV 1080-60i intermediate is the one I choose (template exists on VMS Platinum, not plain VMS). NO MATTER if I just choose the DEFAULT HDV template and never modify anything, OR, if I hit "custom" to that template and do a few more changes, in both cases the resulted video is 4:3.

It seems that Sony Vegas 8 has a bug with HDV widescreen in .avi and .mov (while it works for .wmv), while it works with normal NTSC widescreen no matter what template you choose. As I said above, this bug does not exist in VMS7.

Re: Hostility...
I've been silent so far, but I need to step in here and agree with IRH.

I spend a lot of time (okay, maybe too much time) on both the VMS and Vegas forums. I have the full Vegas 7, but still have VMS 6 Platinum installed.

Here on the VMS forum, I'm occasionally useful to somebody. Over on the Vegas forum, with the big boys, I'm mostly a nobody/lurker -- I really don't have much to contribute over there, but I learn a lot from the other people there.

There's a big difference between the two forums. Here on VMS, people are generally really excited about what they can accomplish with VMS. This is truly a fan club for VMS, and I love it too. So when Eugenia's first post here was highly critical of our beloved VMS, many people were, understandably, very put off. It would be like somebody new joining a football team's fan website, and then making a first post that talked about how much everybody on the team sucked.

But here's the difference between the VMS forum and the Vegas forum: if she'd made that same post in the Vegas forum, she'd have had half a dozen other people add their gripes right after hers: when are we going to get a better titler? what about this feature? when is this quirk going to be fixed. That kind of "complaining" is pretty regular over there, but pretty rare over here. Certainly, the Vegas users love their Vegas as well, but since many of them depend on Vegas to make a living, they are always very candid and very vocal about pushing for features and improvements.

So, let's all give Eugenia some slack. Let's drop the personal attacks. If you have something beneficial or encouraging to contribute to a thread, please join in. But please resist the urge to lash out at somebody for criticising our beloved editing program.

(BTW: Sorry, I don't have any experience with HDV, and don't have VMS8, so I don't really have any help to offer regarding the topic of this thread...)

Tim L

Being a newbie, this may be an ignorant suggestion, but have you experimented with the setting 'stretch video to fill out the output frame - do not letterbox' in the Render -dialog.

Thanks Tim, appreciated.
Ivan123: Yes.

4Eyes (before you deleted your comment you asked how to reproduce the problem): Simply get any 1440x1080 video clip (I even link to one above if you don't have one), click "render as" on VMS8-Plat, follow the default HDV 1080/60i intermediate template (no need to even press "custom") and then check the resulted file with ANY application you want (including Vegas itself). The resulted video is non-anamorphic. With VMS7, it correctly saves down the video as anamorphic but VMS8 does not. I assume you were able to reproduce the bug?

Eugenia,

You indicate that VMSP 7 works fine, but not VMSP 8. Also, that VMSP 7 won't open projects from VMSP 8.

If you have an immediate need to render, try this: Open both VMSP 7 and VMSP 8 at the same time. Open your project in 8, and create a similar, empty project in 7. Select everything in the project in 8, copy, and try to paste into 7, then render from 7.

I don't know if this will work -- haven't tried it myself -- but if you have an urgent need to get something rendered, it's worth a try.

Tim L

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=533797&Replies=46

Started off sounding like a Pinnacle Studio poster. I spent so much time over there listening to this kind of stuff that I just had a knee jerk reaction.

I apologize for any hurt I've caused. But sometimes it is just faster to go directly to support and let the people who built the software look at it rather than banter it about in a forum and get nowhere very fast.

I am a software developer as well and I'd much rather have someone contact me about a potential problem in my software so that I can quickly find a fix rather than have a bunch of people bash it.

And I'm sorry but Eugenia's post was bashing to me. Just look at all the words in CAPS.

I was bashing at you because you were doing so before me. You frustrated me immensely after I started this honest thread. When I am frustrated, I use caps, like I do below. I have just woken up when I write this, and I am already frustrated. If you had no information to the issue you should had not replied in the first place. And you copy/paste the link to ANOTHER thread, like it has ANYTHING to do with this one. It just shows ONE thing and one thing only: that you TAG people, that you view me with prejudice and when this HONEST thread came to be, you replied with that prejudice in mind WITHOUT giving me the benefit of the doubt. At the end of that old thread you link I CLEARLY said that I wish I could lock it because MOST of the problems went away with VMS8 (while the problems did occur and HONESTLY FRUSTRATED ME in VMS7). But instead of taking THAT in mind, you took the whole thread and the overall impression you had at that time. I guess that's the problem of the internet, you remember at the end the beginning of the thread instead of its outcome!! This is just unfair. Besides, I never lied in my threads, my problems were honest frustrations. But somehow you can't understand that so I have news for you: VMS is not perfect.

Please, learn to give people the benefit of the doubt and treat each case seperately. That's all I ask from anyone around here. If you are going to read and reply to my posts, at least try to reproduce or understand what I am trying to say rather than trying to take me off the picture or trying to make me look like I am crazy or something just because a month ago you didn't like me and you still have that feeling on the back of your mind.

So, let's agree to be tolerant and open minded of each other.

I will be calling Sony support today. As I said above, the reasons for not calling them YET is because first I need users and possibly Vegas' developers to also know about the bug, and secondly, because I had no time this week. In the business hours I had to run to the Greek consulate in San Francisco for lots of paperwork because of some laws that changed in my country.

Ok, I sent a bug report to them via their online form. I called them, BUT, their system has changed. In order to get tech support now you have to pay for a plan. There doesn't seem to be free phone-based customer support anymore for registered users. When I called them 2-3 weeks ago there was clearly a phone menu option for Vegas-related stuff, but now it doesn't. Now you either have to pay for phone tech support, or use their online form.

Dimes, YES, 5 days. Because I BOUGHT VMS8 after 5 days of using the trial. The trial is 30 days, but I ***needed*** the extra features and new fixes and so I BOUGHT it. So for me, the trial was 5 days in ***PRACTICAL TERMS***. VMS8 fixed some of the bugs that really frustrated me in VMS7, and so it was the ***logical*** thing to do, to upgrade as soon as I could.

So now you are CALLING ME NAMES, without having all the facts laid out in front of you. Why do I have to spell out to you every little thing I do? I don't understand why you are continuing this polemic behavior, instead of just going BACK ON TOPIC?

I want to discuss the problem and ALL YOU ARE REPLYING are things against me!!! STOP IT. Either go back on topic and if you can't, DO NOT REPLY in this thread. This thread is about a bug, not about me.

I'm not getting in the middle of this in any way, but since your website is posted in your profile.....

www.eugenia.co.uk

many people online, who don't know me in person, think I am "rude" or a "bitch", but in reality it's just me writing or saying things the way I think about them in my head without adding the "politeness distortion field" that our society has come to require - it's raw data baby! Love me or hate me, there is no in-between. You have been warned.

Euginia's blog: Software sucks, Part III

> 1. I think your tone is such that only a fool would be willing to help you.
> 2. I'm sure as hell glad that I don't have to work with you on a daily basis.
> 3. How many divorces have you had?


Abuse reported.

It almost seems ridiculous at this point to return to the subject at hand. But here I go.

I have not worked with any HDV. With that in mind, wouldn't the aspect ratios be similar to DV/ MPEG 1, 2? In those cases:

4:3=1.33:1
16:9=1.78:1

Could you be getting a square because it is trying to create 1.33? No flames please, just trying to contribute.

Eugenia has found a bug (pixel aspect ratio detection for some file types, like HDV intermediate .avi).

Sorry about that, we'll fix it in the next update (update release scheduled for August '07)

-SCS Dev

Dear Eugenia,
Just want to wish you a big ‘Congratulations’ on finding a true and legitimate ‘bug’ in VMSP8. With world class people using this software, it should be quite a feather in your cap knowing you were the one to discover and report it :) . Thank you for helping make it an even better piece of software.
That brings me to my second point. It was obvious from the first time you posted here that you were very knowledgeable (an understatement), and your website confirmed that. I wish you could use some of those tech smarts, and use them on people smarts :). I read that you are aware that you can come across a little coarse sometimes, and seem to be fine, or even proud of that. That’s OK, but I can only imagine how much more successful (and possibly happier) you would be if you came across a little smoother. Clearly you have plenty to offer many of us, I just hope you will present it in a way so that people will listen to, and learn from you. Again, congrats and thanks. Cin