Comments

Chienworks wrote on 2/24/2006, 4:13 AM
You could create a 655x480 still image (assuming you use NTSC) that is black on top and bottom with a white band across the middle. The white area should be 368 pixels high with 56 pixels of black on top and bottom. Place this on a track above the video and set the compositing type to Multiply (Mask).

For PAL, assuming i'm thinking right this morning, you would need a 787x576 image with the white band 442 pixels high and the black bands 67 pixels high.

This sort of thing is where i wish Vegas had Track level Pan/Crop and Event Motion. :)
tbush wrote on 2/24/2006, 4:32 AM
I have been working on seminar/retreat footage that has both 16 x 9 and 4 x 3. I wasn't sure what to do, but yesterday I set the pan/crop preset to 1.85:1 academy aspet ration, and that looks the best so far. I haven't rendered it out yet, so I am not sure how it will work on DVD. Is anyone using this preset? The picture that I have output to my tv from Vegas looks really good...very clear. The preset seems to combine the two shots very nicely.

Thanks, Tara
Mike R wrote on 2/24/2006, 4:18 PM
Thanks for the ideas, I'll try both

mike
David Jimerson wrote on 2/24/2006, 5:41 PM
"I set the pan/crop preset to 1.85:1 academy aspet ration, and that looks the best so far. I haven't rendered it out yet, so I am not sure how it will work on DVD. Is anyone using this preset? The picture that I have output to my tv from Vegas looks really good...very clear. The preset seems to combine the two shots very nicely."

It will work, and work well, especially if you're making a 4:3 DVD.

BUT . . .

If you're in NTSC land . . .

If you make a widescreen DVD and watch it on a normal 4:3 TV, you will see narrow, very-black lines between the top and bottom of the image and the black bars. This is because the crop is revealing the Vegas timeline, and the timeline is true black at 0 IRE. Remember, no matter how you crop, the video exported for widescreen DVD is always 16:9, so if you crop wider than that, there will be black bars inserted as part of the image.Your DVD player will create the letterboxing and insert bars at 7.5 IRE above and below that 16:9 video. Next to the 0 IRE black bars in the 16:9 image, they w ill look gray and the bars immediately above and below the picture will look very black.

A way around this is to put a black solid color card UNDER the entire timeline and crop it to 16:9. Then, drop the "Computer to Studio RGB" color corrector preset on it to bring the black up to 7.5 IRE. There are other types of presets which will do this, too, but that one is usually the easiest to find. You could also do it by editing the properties of the black card and changing all color values to 16.

To understand what I'm saying a little more fully, try to make a widescreen DVD and then watch it on a 4:3 TV.
tbush wrote on 2/24/2006, 6:31 PM
"To understand what I'm saying a little more fully, try to make a widescreen DVD and then watch it on a 4:3 TV.

O.K. Thanks, I am just about ready to do that. Great information...I am still experimenting.

Tara
tbush wrote on 2/24/2006, 7:17 PM
I just watched it on 3 Tvs. 2 of the TVs or DVD players letterboxed the video, and it looked fine. The oldest DVD player stretched it to 4x3. Everyone looked tall and thin, but I never saw any lines.
David Jimerson wrote on 2/24/2006, 8:11 PM
The oldest player must have been set for widescreen display, then.

If you never saw the lines, cool -- but the brightness on the TVs might have been set fairly low. Others will probably see the lines.

Just to be clear, you tried the DVD without putting the black solid color under the timeline? Or with?
tbush wrote on 2/25/2006, 4:39 AM
Yes, I tried the DVD without putting the black solid color under the timeline. The TV that I output to when I am editing was as bright as it will go because it is naturally dark. In fact, in the background of the video there is this wood partition, and on my editing TV it looks black even with the brightness up as far as it will go, but on the other two TVs, you can see brown and the grain of the wood. I didn't check the brightness of the other two because they seemed bright. I can check that later.

One thing I don't understand, if a DVD player is set for widescreen display and you put a video that is widescreen in it...why does it stretch it to 4x3?

Thanks, Tara
David Jimerson wrote on 2/25/2006, 7:51 AM
If that DVD player set to widescreen display and you're showing it on a 4:3 TV, it wil look stretched because the DVD player will be displaying the picture in the correct pixel aspect ratio for a widescreen TV. The setting should be "letterbox."

Good info on calibrating an NTSC monitor (or TV) can be found here:

http://www.videouniversity.com/tvbars2.htm

It explains color bars and how and why to use them.
johnmeyer wrote on 2/25/2006, 10:45 AM
Great info, David. I can see that if a monitor wasn't properly calibrated, a person very well might not see the difference between 0 and 7.5 IRE. Everyone reading this who HASN'T calibrated their monitors, should definitely do so.

Now. Not later.
tbush wrote on 2/25/2006, 12:17 PM
Thanks for all the info. I really appreciate the help. I will check out the information about calibrating and how to use the color bars. I never really knew how to use them. Tara