Comments

John_Cline wrote on 6/15/2008, 2:27 AM
Set the project properties to either DV or DV Widescreen, depending on whether you want to end up with standard 4:3 DV or 16:9 widescreen DV. (On the project properties page make sure you have some sort of deinterlace method selected, interpolate will do.)

Place the HDV clip(s) on the timeline and then render using one of the two DV render settings. If you want standard 4x3 instead of widescreen, then select DV for the project properties and then apply an "Event Pan/Crop" to the clip and choose the "4:3 Standard TV aspect ratio" preset. This will crop the 16:9 footage to 4:3 by taking the center portion of the HDV footage.
colins wrote on 6/15/2008, 2:35 AM
Many thanks John for your promt reply. I will give it a go now.

Colin
colins wrote on 6/15/2008, 2:42 AM
John

Do I capture as HDV first and then do what you said? If so, what settings should I set in project properties? I want it as widescreen.

Colin
John_Cline wrote on 6/15/2008, 5:17 AM
I assumed that you had already captured the video as HDV.

Most HDV camcorders have an option to downconvert HDV to DV in the camera and output it as widescreen DV via the Firewire port. This would certainly be the quickest way to do it. Consult your camcorder's manual for details. After you capture, set your project properties to DV Widescreen.

Instead of this, you could also capture it as HDV and follow the steps I outlined in my message above. This may produce better looking video than doing it on the fly using the camcorder's real-time downconvert.

Any way you do it, set the project properties to DV Widescreen. Since the project properties don't affect the capture, it doesn't really matter how its set. Of course, Vegas uses different capture utilities depending on whether you are capturing DV or HDV.
farss wrote on 6/15/2008, 5:20 AM
If you want to get the best looking SD then capture as HDV and downconvert to the Sony YUV codec. You'll use up more disk space though.

Bob.
Laurence wrote on 6/15/2008, 7:41 AM
Another option is to use SD resolution Cineform. It is pretty much the same size as DV codec, handles multiple generations well, smart-renders, and most importantly, has the full color-space that will make your final DVD renders pop.
colins wrote on 6/15/2008, 8:09 AM
John

I have just captured (or so I thinkl) the HDV tape (as MT2 files?).

How do I get them on the timeline? They do not show up in Explorer.

Colin
colins wrote on 6/15/2008, 8:49 AM
Bob

I have just captured (or so I thinkl) the HDV tape (as MT2 files?).

How do I get them on the timeline? They do not show up in Explorer.

Colin
ScorpioProd wrote on 6/16/2008, 2:12 PM
Also note that even though HDV 1080 and DV widescreen are both 16:9, they are NOT the same pixel aspect ratio.

So if you put a HDV 1080 clip in a DV widescreen project, you will see slight pillar boxing on your output. This is because effectively, the video is slightly taller than DV widescreen.

The best way to fix this is to go into event pan/crop for the clip, right click, and choose "Match Output Aspect", this will trim a little off the top and bottom and make it properly fill the DV widescreen output.

An alternative is to pick "stretch to fit output window" when you do your final render. It's a small change, so the stretch shouldn't be noticable.

But still, given the choice, I prefer not to stretch anything, so I do the event pan/crop method when I do this.
colins wrote on 6/17/2008, 1:09 AM
Many thanks for that.

Can you tell me how I get the captured HDV clips (m2t files) into the timeline as they do not show up in the Vegas Explorer window.
farss wrote on 6/17/2008, 1:36 AM
"Can you tell me how I get the captured HDV clips (m2t files) into the timeline as they do not show up in the Vegas Explorer window."

Which version of Vegas?
I'm not quite understanding this, any version of Vegas that could capture HDV could put it on the T/L.
What camera was this from?

Bob.
colins wrote on 6/17/2008, 4:07 AM
Hi Bob

I am using Vegas Pro 8. Camera is Sony FX1

Colin
Terry Esslinger wrote on 6/17/2008, 10:10 AM
Colin,
I have an FX1 and Pro8. When I capture with the Vegas capture program the clip automatically show up in the preoject media window. Are you saying that yours do not? If so where are they captured to? Can you not use the import media function to bring them into the project from where they are captured to? If you try this does anything show up in the project media window?
colins wrote on 6/20/2008, 2:30 PM
To everyone who helped me - thanks so much! I have now successfully converted the HDV to DV. Special thanks to ScorpioProd for the advice on the pillarboxing!

Colin
"A happy and very relieved person tonight"