DVD Clips/film letterboxing?

buckaroo wrote on 1/24/2007, 6:02 AM
I have just made my first DVD with DVDA4 exporting to Toast 7 on my Mac (as my pc has no DVD drive)

My DVD consists of small clips from films, however the only annoying thing is that the film clips seem to be "letterboxed" ?

Is there any way around this when i burn a DVD?

There are 10 clips and 2 of them are fine as in they have that "Cinema feel" of two black bands above and below which is fine, but the others which were recorded the same way seem to be in "boxes" in the middle of the TV screen, with black bands down the sides of the screen too?

I certainly dont want to re-record my original clips again, but wondered if there was anyway i could remedy this?

I did all the editing etc in Sony Vegas 7.0 and burnt to DVD (and prepared) in DVD Architect 4.0a.

Is there something i can tick that would stretch everything out the same to look like a professional film?

I know there is a setting in Vegas when i came to do my MPEG2 render, but not sure if it was ticked or not? (probably not) but can this be remedied in DVDA? as i dont want to do my 2 1/2 hr render again to MPEG2 in Vegas!! but if i have to, i will....

Thanks in advance!

Comments

MPM wrote on 1/24/2007, 9:46 AM
It sounds like the original pixel aspect ratio was set incorrectly in Vegas, & if so, it will mean a new render unfortunately.

Skipping the longish explanation re: why, separate from the frame aspects of 4:3 & 16:9, video intended for std. TV has a pixel aspect ratio that when played back on a PC causes it to look stretched wide (NTSC) or narrowed (PAL). Video intended for a PC simply appears as it is -- not stretched. A lot of software, Vegas included, can compensate to make the video appear normal (not stretched).

If I remember correctly from one of your earlier posts buckaroo, you had mixed video sources -- maybe some of them had the PC pixel aspect (square pixels). Assuming those clips were 640 width, the short, simple way to render those to DVD is to uncheck "Maintain Aspect" in the clip's properties on the timeline, and have the project set to 704 or 720 width. This will take longer to render as the video has to be resized. When maintain aspect is checked for a square pixel video at 640, Vegas will render a 640 picture in the middle of a 704 or 720 frame -- this will be visible in the preview during render. There is also a check box on the render dialog window for fill frame, do not letterbox -- I've had mixed results using it.

I mentioned two widths, 704 & 720... 720 is more common, but 704 works, usually just as well. The stretch or resize from 640 to 704 is less, but if you're rendering some 720 clips as part of the same mpg2, a project setting of 704 (cropping your 720 width frames) is more complicated & might take longer to render.

Again that's based on a guess that some of your clips were less than 720 width, and maintain aspect was turned on, which would cause the pillar boxing described. Now that you have an idea of what's going on, you can watch the preview window [which you set to duplicate device aspect] during test renders to make sure all is well & tweak your project as needed.

Other than that, the frame aspect in mpg2 sets the clip to be 4:3 or 16:9 - a DVD player will stretch a 704 or 720 clip to something close to the 16:9 *frame* aspect ratio on playback. A DVD player should obey these flags in mpg2 video clips -- a 4:3 title in a 16:9 DVDA project will still display at 4:3.
buckaroo wrote on 1/24/2007, 1:22 PM
OK thanks MPM, think i got that! ;o)

So as 2 of the clips are fine (the "movie look" of 2 black bands at the top and bottom) how do i adjust the others?

Do i do them individually or change the settings when i press RENDER AS.. ? I thought that the preview in player setting would let me see what it would look like before i do a lengthy preview? but that seems to take just as long as a normal render?

So do i have to keep biting the bullet each time and doing a 3 hour render just to see what settings im using?

Sorry for being thick if you explained this, but am new to Video editing and Vegas - although im having a ball!!
MPM wrote on 1/24/2007, 8:26 PM
With your project open in Vegas, right click the preview window & make sure "Simulate Device Aspect Ratio" is checked. Under the Options -> Preferences menu, the General tab should have a check next to "Show Progress in Video Preview Window while rendering". That way when Vegas is rendering you'll see what the frame will look like.

What I've seen happen in Vegas (& other NLEs) is if the aspect ratio is locked, it won't resize something like a 640 x 480 video clip to fill a 720 x 480 frame size (which would be set in the project properties and custom settings for encoding mpg2). Since it won't resize the video, it places it in the center of the frame.

Go to each clip on the timeline, create a short loop by click-dragging above the timeline (cursor will turn into double arrow), and start to render a short test using the DVD Architect video stream template. Watch the preview window to see if the black bars show up at the sides, and cancel the render. If you don't see the black bars at the sides, move on to the next clip and so on, working down the timeline. If you don't see any black bars at the sides, skip the next 2 paragraphs.

When the preview shows the side bars, cancel the render, right click on the clip, select Properties, then make sure "Maintain Aspect Ratio" is not checked. Click OK, & try your test render again - once you check out the preview you can cancel the render.

If you still see the side bars and Maintain Aspect is unchecked in the clip's properties, right click on the clip, select Event Pan/Crop, & if the Pan/Crop window shows anything other than Default next to "Presets", check "Stretch to fill frame" is checked under "Source", & try unselecting Maintain aspect (3rd icon from the bottom on the left side). If that doesn't do it, the only other place I know of with a "Maintain Aspect" button in Vegas is in the Track Motion window.

If you don't see any black side bars in Vegas doing short test renders for each clip, then the problem is not in your Vegas project or renders. Since you're rendering in Vegas, DVDA should have no effect -- you can double check this by going to the file menu in DVDA and selecting Optimize DVD... The window should show video files with the green filmstrip icon, with a green check mark to the right (under a larger filmstrip icon) -- you can also double check your DVD preview in DVDA, & play the DVDA rendered layout from your hard drive using Power DVD, Videolan etc. If everything still looks good, then the problem's somewhere on the Mac.

I've only seen the side pillars occur when rendering video files to mpg2, & Vegas automatically sets video to maintain the aspect ratio, which I've seen cause this very problem, but if I'm wrong wouldn't be the first time, so that should either fix it or narrow it down in a fairly short amount of time.

Otherwise just general stuff in Vegas, you want to set your field order for each clip (right click, properties, 2nd tab), project, and for mpg2 after clicking the custom button on the render dialog. Normally DV footage is 2nd field first, and just about everything else is either progressive or top field first. You can double check by going frame by frame through a fast motion scene in each clip -- if the field order is backwards for the clip, usually the motion will seem to catch or reverse every so often. Usually I set the project field order to match the majority of the clips -- same for the mpg2.

Vegas will normally set any video from 640 width downwards with a pixel aspect of 1, which is OK. It's also set 720 width video to DV/D1 spec of .9091/1.0926 (NTSC/PAL), which is normally OK.

Good luck
buckaroo wrote on 1/25/2007, 5:58 AM
Thanks MPM - I did another render with "do not letterbox" and all clips were fine except the original good clips! so did the UNTICK maintain aspect ratio on each scene - which has done the trick!! thanks again!!!!

The Next thing is burning a DVD - I go into DVD Architect and get the MPEG2 and AC3 file lined up in the preview at the bottom but have no ideas about creating menus?

I have imported all of my markers (for the start of each clip) from Vegas and they show up in DVDA (you can also jump forward to clips in a DVD player so i've done something right here somewhere)

Somehow i got a small menu to show up (No idea how!!) when i pressed the "preview" button

so it had all the clips indexed on the menu so that you could jump straight to them - but when i prepared the dvd (i have to send across to Toast on my osx mac to burn DVD) the menu had gone, and the DVD plays instantly its in the machine?!

Any simple way of doing a menu and maybe putting some music over the menu section only?

I got really confused with the menu tree at the side, and when i go to add a "play" button - the button icon stays on and plays over my entire movie!! haha!

Sorry for being thick again, but looked at the help with no luck - i just need to finish this DVD project off quickly and am learning the hard way!

(Thanks for all your help so far!)
bStro wrote on 1/25/2007, 8:44 AM
When you create a new project, the first thing DVD Architect shows you is the menu. To add a video to the project (and simulteanously, create a button that will play that video), you drag the video file from the Explorer window onto the menu workspace (that large open area in the middle of your screen that says Menu 1). So long as your audio file is in the same directory as the video file and has the same name as the video file (except the three letter extension), DVD Architect will automatically include the audio.

It sounds like what you've done is dragged your audio and video file to Menu 1's timeline, which you only want to do if you want them to play during the menu.

Rob
MPM wrote on 1/25/2007, 9:22 PM
DVDA 4 lets you create DVDs with and without menus, or might have created one long menu?. TO create a menued DVD, start a new project selecting the type with a menu if v 4, then as Rob wrote, drag your video onto the menu. Right click on the button it just created and select navigate into. Should see your video track, & if named the same, your audio below it -- if not drag your audio to the track below the video, or go to the media tab in the upper right.

Drag a picture you created or something from the templates to the menu window for a background. You'll have to create an audio clip, if you want one, in Vegas by rendering just a short section -- create a loop & select the box to render only the loop in the render as dialog. To finish it off a bit, before you render the short audio clip, add a fade in & fade out. Drag this audio clip to the 2nd, audio track on the timeline with the menu displayed.

Finally set the button type if you want, by right clicking it and selecting image & text, just image, or just text. Alter the text if used to something like Play, change the image if used optionally, and go for it.