Letterbox and changing color of black bars

GSTgst wrote on 3/9/2011, 10:25 AM
I have a video of mixed aspect ratio files (some regular def, and some high-def/wide screen) . When I import the widescreen files into my project, a black bar is put atop and below my video (which is fine). Can I change the color of that black bar to something else? Can I change the color of the black bar per clip? (i.e. clip one black bar color change would be blue, clip two would be yellow, clip three green, etc). Thank you.

Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 3/9/2011, 10:32 AM
"Can I change the color of that black bar to something else?"

Of course. Those black bars are transparent, not black. Put a solid color or background image (or as many as you want) on the bottom most video track. If it is going to the web, it is a good idea to confine your colors to "legal" levels, 16-235 (found in your generated media properties).
GSTgst wrote on 3/9/2011, 4:52 PM
There's a step I'm missing. I know how to put a solid color in the track below it., but how do I show it thru to the video above it? (Cookie Cutter, Composting, or something else?)
Chienworks wrote on 3/9/2011, 6:45 PM
You shouldn't have to do anything at all. Areas outside the source frame are transparent by default. Have you done anything with the narrower clips besides simply dragging them to the timeline? Have you played with their media or aspect ratio settings? Have you used pan/crop or track motion?
GSTgst wrote on 3/11/2011, 11:15 AM
After some testing, I found out why it wasn't working. Although my original souce files were wide screen, when I rendered the files it put them in letterbox format (with the black box above & below). When I inserted those rendered files into my new timeline, the black box above& below was actually built INTO the file, as opposed to something Sony Vegas put into the clip.

To fix the problem, I re-rendered the files in a widescreen (non-letterbox) format, then imported them . Putting a solid color file in the timeline below then showed through. Thanks for your help!
musicvid10 wrote on 3/11/2011, 11:31 AM
Glad you got it sorted.
As a point of information, relatively few codecs will actually render an alpha (transparent) layer, and you often have to tell them to do that.

So as you discovered, a normal render makes the transparency solid black if nothing is underneath.