Well, this morning I just tried rendering to an NTSC avi file with the default settings and still got the black screen problem. The only processing I did on the file was setting the normalize switch on the audio tracks and setting the pan/crop control to a 4:3 screen size, otherwise I just dragged the clip on the timeline and ran a render with the default settings.

I seem to have started having problems since I started using the pan/zoom control to convert the video to 4:3 ratio, but I am getting the black screen even when I render to wide format now. Is there a "restore defaults" command I can use?

I have an HV30 and while I don't use the Cine or 24p mode by choice, I've never have a problem with capture or render (unless I messed up connecting the camcorder in Capture). So I'm not sure what your problem is but here are a couple of things to consider and share with us so we can potentially help:

--- What are you output settings in the HV30 - HDV or SD?

While probably not related to your problem, why use 4:3 or SD when you have a nice HD cam capable of glorious 16:9 ? :)

Hi Soniclight:

I agree about the video quality of the HV30 - my problem with this is that I need to make DVD's of an event for some relatives that don't have Blu-Ray players, or in some cases 16:9 TVs. If I can get it rendered properly, I'd like to create a DVD with the option to choose either the original or cropped 4:3 version. (I've had trouble explaining this to people - if I can figure out how to do it in DVD Architect, I'd like to make a selection screen with clip art of an old CRT set and a modern LCD/Plasma TV with the text "Does your TV look like THIS? Or Like THIS?" Seriously, I've probably spent a year of my life explaining the difference between full and wide screen to people...)

Anyway, the HV30 is set to output to HDV.

I have actually tried both versions of Vegas - I upgraded to 9 but still have 8 installed. (You'd think I'd have a clue how to use them by now...)

I have tried setting the project to both the input media and output media settings, i.e. both HDV 1440x1080@24P and SD 720x480@24p. Haven't had any luck getting a file that will play in VLC with either setting, although I notice that Version 9 of Vegas displays a '(media offline)' message on the video track after I finish a render. When I do a render, the video displays normally in the preview window, it's only the output file that doesn't have a picture.

FWIW, does it render any format from the problem vid? If not, than it's not decoding & working with the source images. If so, then your chosen encoder is causing your headache.

From there you can narrow it down, maybe in a fresh project just rendering a short clip from the time-line. For decoding prob in 7 64 I did a lot of testing with wmplayer -- if didn't work, most vid software in Windows wouldn't either.

If you're importing aud/vid muxed, remember that things like the splitter have to be compatible with both the audio & video decoders -- where I had my problems -- & each individually checked out. Might even be a work-a-round -> import separately, render separately, & mux the output files.

My first thought is that people are used to letterboxing by now. Deliver one version in widescreen, and it will play letterboxed on a 4:3 screen. Most, if not all DVD players can deliver a cropped fullscreen 4:3 with a click of a remote button.