DV to DVD help

nattylight wrote on 10/23/2006, 2:19 PM
Probably a stupid question but I've been looking all over for an answer and I haven't found one yet. Anyway, I'm working in Vegas 5.0 with digital video from my camcorder, 720x480, .9091 aspect ratio and all that, but when I try to burn this to a DVD, (using generic unhelpful DVD software admittedly), the video looks slightly squished wether I play it on a TV or computer. Only slightly squished, not to the extent of a 16:9 to 4:3 conversion or anything like that.

So my question is, what is the proper method of outputting standard DV footage in Vegas so that it will come out with the right resolution and PAR to go on a DVD without any squishing? Thanks for any help.

Comments

gjesion wrote on 10/23/2006, 3:03 PM
Try using Vegas to encode it to MPG then burn it. Be sure to include the audio....

Regards,
Jerry
fldave wrote on 10/23/2006, 4:28 PM
.9091 PAR indicates 4x3. Be sure to select the NTSC DV mpeg template in Vegas to output, Not the NTSC DV Widescreen.

Also, your DVD software needs to create a 4x3 DVD.

If it still messes up, then you need new DVD creation software.

Edited:
This is assuming your footage looks good on preview in Vegas.
nattylight wrote on 10/23/2006, 6:06 PM
Yeh, I've got all that down. I think the problem might lie in the DVD format having 1.0 PAR? Is the DVD 4:3 format slightly different from the DV one? And if so how can I render it straight from Vegas?

It's not just on DVDs either, the same squishing appears when I watch any DV footage full screen in a media player, though not when I watch it at its native resolution.
riredale wrote on 10/23/2006, 7:40 PM
These aspect ratio discussions always throw me, but try this: DV (in NTSC countries, anyway) is 720x480, with a pixel aspect ratio of .91 . DVD is just that same 720x480 layout, also with the same pixel aspect ratio. If you view video with a player that knows nothing about pixel aspect ratios, it will probably just assume a PAR of 1:1, resulting in a horizontally-stretched image. Or maybe the player is just trying to fit a 4:3 window, in which case the image would be very slightly squashed. I know nothing about the Windows player, but I recall that older versions assumed 1:1. I use Zoom Player, a very nice and flexible freeware player.

By the way, DV is not 4:3; it's slightly wider than that.