The problem I have is that I see a black bar at the top and bottom of the 1440x1080 video file. Also, since it's mt2 files the playback is sluggish. So my question is: should I render out to 720x480 then bring the file back in to edit with the SD video. Or is there something I can do in PAN/CROP to make the HD video look like the SD?

Thanks,
Troy

EDIT: This post assumed that both footages are native 16:9 aspect. Apparently that assumption was not the case.

The problem I have is that I see a black bar at the top and bottom of the 1440x1080 video file.

1) Set your Project Properties the same as your AVCHD footage. You do this by clicking on the yellow "folder" icon in the upper right-hand corner of your Project Properties dialog and navigating to one of your AVCHD media files.

The AVCHD preview should now have no thin black bars. It might even preview better now that you have taken the load off the preview engine. See if you can live with it. The SD footage will now have thin black bars on the sides, because the aspects are not perfectly the same. This is inconsequential and has absolutely no effect on rendering (see #2 below). If it bothers you, you can follow the suggestions in the thread noted at the bottom of this post.

2) When you render to SD Widescreen, check "Stretch video to fill output." This ensures that there will be no thin black lines top and bottom in the final video.

If your preview is still sluggish, feel free to do an intermediate render as described in the previous post. Many people would choose to do the intermediate render at the same resolution and PAR of the original, rather than downsize it in this step. You may want to experiment to see which approach works best for you.

Although I certainly can't fault you for missing it, I am amazed at the number of times this same information gets posted, and I think SONY should compose a sticky with their own recommendations and place it prominently at the top of each video forum. For instance, the same question got asked yesterday over in the Movie Studio forum.
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=687105&Replies=3

timtowtdi

Your biggest challenge is the HG21 recorded 16:9 and the 2100 recorded 4:3. I'd suggest doing a centre cutout of the AVCHD footage and downconverting that to SD before getting tangled up in doing a multicam edit.

Event Pan/Crop is your friend for doing the center cutout as you can slide the crop window to select which part of the frame is retained. Use a HDV project for doing this and render to DV at Best. Make certain your project has a de-interlace method selected. Interpolate seems to yield the best results.


Bob.

Bob,
I think the 2100 also shot "fake" 16:9 (a friend had one).
But if the OP is trying to mix different formats (he didn't say), there are some other issues you rightfully brought up, cropping and letterboxing being two to consider.

"I think the 2100 also shot "fake" 16:9 (a friend had one)."

Indeed, same on the PD150/170. If that's what's been done then it's possible that needs to be cropped to 16:9 and then the whole show could be done in 16:9. My only concern would be the 2100 footage could look pretty soft. I've tried working with footage from another camera's faux 16:9 and certainly in PAL it sticks out like dog's dangly bits.

We really need more input from the OP here.

Bob.

Sorry for the double post. I performed a search on this subject and didn't find what I was looking for. I guess the problem was that I only search under the Vegas forum. I'm not sure what some of the responders meant by different formats, but my goal is simply to take the footage from a event I shot with two different cams (cam 1 shot in HD although I thought I was shooting in SD) and (cam two shot in SD). Once in vegas I want to multicam edit both together and output to MPEG2 in SD (720x480). I hope this helps.

Troy

What we both meant was this:

Are both files 16:9 Widescreen or is the SD DV file 4:3?
I assumed they were the same format. Bob reasonably pointed out that they might be different.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspect_ratio_(image)

No. One is SD and the other is 16:9. I think I made some head way. I set the project properties format to 16:9 to match the HD footage then use the pan/crop I set it to 4:3. Of course this cut off the edge of the HD footage and put black bars on left and right of the display. I then rendered to SD widescreen and the final video looked the same. I guess this is the best solution...right? Or did I leave a step out?

We really need more input from the OP here.
No. One is SD and the other is 16:9

I "think" what you are saying is that the SD footage is 4:3. Is that right?

SD comes in two flavors -- 4:3 and 16:9. Just saying SD doesn't indicate what the aspect ratio is. So, someone could assume that they are both 16:9, and perhaps offer you incorrect advice (as I did).

But if one footage is 4:3 format, and another footage is 16:9 format, then Bob's advice is the best place to start. You have to make a fundamental choice here. Do you want to:
1) Crop the 16:9 to match the 4:3 aspect; or,
2) Crop and enlarge the 4:3 to match the 16:9 aspect (NOT recommended); or,
3) Letterbox the 16:9 footage in a 4:3 aspect (also not recommended): or
4) Leave the aspects as they are with the 4:3 footage pillarboxed, which is what I would do if there are not a lot of scene changes. (Edited for clarity)

Thanks Bob, for seeing through my assumption and for raising another possibility.

Sorry about that. The SD footage is 4:3. I agree the letter box on the SD footage might be the best option. Can you tell me what steps you use to create letter box for 4:3 SD footage? In the past I just created bars at the top using the mask tool on a black background image.