What template should I use for the project?

Have you tried it yet?
I've done this numerous times (most recent was last weekend for an animation festival), sometimes on screens much larger than 9' x 12' and it's always looked good to me and those who were watching it.
Since it's stills, render in "Best" mode to keep the quality as high as possible.

...please keep in mind that I have to fill out the entire 4:3 screen...

Make sure your project properties are set correctly, do a "Match Output Aspect" on everything and this won't be an issue.

BTW, the animation festival was a DVD of 2D & 3D projects that were give to me as uncompressed AVIs and then compressed down to MPEG-2 for playback.
Your project will look much cleaner.

Mike

Mike - Thanks for the reply - it is still 720x480 and no matter what not sharp enough. On top of that mpeg2 is also bound by 720x480.

I followed your advice though and tried experimenting. I got SUPERB picture results doing the following. Remember I am bound by the 12'x9' screens. Also I am bound by a laptop that outputs a max of 1024x768 through its vga output (which is incidentally a hell of a lot better than 720x480)

1. I made a custom veg project (under properties) to be 1024Width and 768Height.

2. I added the hi-res pictures (4:3 natively)

3. I rendered to H264 (Main Concept AVC/quality=Best/custom frame size=1024*768/constant bit rate of 5,000,000)

At this point you don't even need to author to DVD. You end up with a high quality, but custom (no standard template) mpeg4 (H264) file. I just played it through the laptop (using media player classic) to a splitter/amplifier onto the projectors.

The picture quality is HD and mindblowing!

I wish there was a workflow that would burn HD to DVD and play back from Blu-ray. But I think that we have to wait a little here.

Anyone? any experience with authoring HD to disk?

I guess I don't understand the problem. Why not just use the HD project settings of 1920x1080?

"I guess I don't understand the problem. Why not just use the HD project settings of 1920x1080?"

My screens are 12 x 9 (4:3) and the max o/p on the laptop is 1024x768 -

then I still don't understand what the problem is (was?). If you can only go 1024x746 & needed 4:3, then that's the project properties you'd use.

Why does the screen resolution make any difference? I play dozens of different resolution videos on both my computer and home theater setup. The playback software scales the resolution and handles the framerate differences. I think you are making this more complicated than it needs to be.

Repeated scaling won't exactly improve the PQ, particularly anything remotely in the vicinity of 1:1.
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Repeated scaling won't exactly improve the PQ, particularly anything remotely in the vicinity of 1:1.

True, but we're not talking about re-rending, merely about playback. Yes, I understand that anything other than native resolution on the display must be re-scaled, but if you go back to the original post, the display in question is 1024x768. According to what I think is the faulty logic underlying the question, you shouldn't be able to play back NTSC DV (720x480), PAL DV (720x576), HDV (1440x1080 or 1920x1080 once stretched), etc., etc.

In fact, I just cycled through every Project preset in Vegas, and there isn't a single one for 1024x768. So, not one video that has ever been produced in Vegas should ever be displayed on a 1024x768 display.

But, as I've said in the previous posts, perhaps I am not understanding correctly what is really being asked.

1) I need sharper than 720x480 frames.

2) I am limited but content with the available 1024x768 projectors and hence the rented 4:3 screens.

3) I need to fill the 12 x 9 screens rim to rim.

4) This is not about scaling. You can scale 720 x 480 to 1920 x 1080 but the resolution will always be as good as the original.

There is no 1024x768 in Vegas (as John noted), but I created one. I also rendered the end result to 1024x768 H264 codec. I tested it tonight and it looks sharp (much sharper than the 720x480 test DVD).

I am playing the file straight out of my laptop. The file mostly consists of still images some with writing (hence sharpness required). One would have done this on powerpoint but not me. The vagas file rocks though.

I hope this helps to clarify my situation.

Thank you.

Just another (dumb?) question here:

I am now moving on doing a proper 1080p project. How do I author the rendered file to disk?

Does DVD-A handle 1080p? What media do I burn it on?

I'm with John on this. I've done many many "slide show" type videos using high rez stills. Before HD I'd just render projects in 4:3 wmv. After HD I'd render in as high a resolution that would stream well from my laptop. I'd get stuck with whatever projector happened to be free at the school. I never worried about the screen size. People are not going to care if parts of the screen are black. Your videos will probably get more replays off of the PC than the live screening. So just make it shine for the PC and it will be fine from the projector. That's jsut my opinion and I'm sticking to it.