My biggest confusion was how to accomplish the same thing as manually changing the output aspect of a clip.

Am I hearing you correctly that:

1. I should go ahead and edit away, ignoring the black bars on top and bottom

2. When rendering, when I render to SD and check the stretch button, it will do the same thing as manually adjusting a clip?

Thanks for the insight.
Rob

Rob

I always choose HDV project settings specifically 1280 x 720p to suit the footage which is 16 x 9
If you work in full HD 1920 x 1080 the amount of observable resolution between 720p and full HD is not much

If you are working with interlaced footage then choose the appropriate project settings

The important thing is to maintain footage aspect ratio

So if you render that project to a SD mpeg it will become 4 x 3 which means it will render to fit 4 x 3 aspect = everything will be in correct proportion this is the correct way of doing it but you will have black panels top and bottom

If you want everything to fill the screen then when you render to SD mpeg check the stretch to fill tab everything will be squashed into that frame which is really incorrect but many do do this to fill the screen

I do this only if the content is going to be played from a media player or a DVD player through a scaler which will rescale to fit 16 x 9 then the proportions will be correct again

I gave all thi a shot and I see what you mean.

What I am trying to explain is that if you have 16x9 footage in a 4x3 project, click on the timeline, on a specific clip, on the crop mark...

within that "Event/Pan/Crop" screen, you can right click and choose fit to aspect ratio. When you do that, it effectively zooms in and does not squash. I am looking for a way to do this with a clip in the project media folder so it translates through the multicam editing horizon.

Does this make sense?
Rob

I use HD cams and output HD for web and SD for DVD's. It is teaching material and we don't expect everyone to have HD ability, at ahome.

One effective way to come down from HD to SD is as follows:
1. Do your color correction on your clips, in the project media explorer.

2. Create your multicam track.

3. Adjust the clips that are visible (as they stack) and crop each one. In my case, having two cams and multiple segments, it might be 3-6 adjustments.

4. Having done that, as you MC edit, and switch from one to the other, the newly created clips maintain the crop settings and you do not have to come behind and crop again.

BENEFITS:
* Crop work is greatly reduced.
* You have HD footage in an SD frame with no smooshing or scrunching footage into the SD box. It is cropped and looks like GREAT SD footage.


Hope this helps someone else.
Rob

I don't understand why you find it necessary to crop and change the aspect when rendering for SD.

HD is 16:9 Widescreen. SD can be 4:3 --or-- 16:9 Widescreen. Most people do not have a need to change the aspect when going from one to the other.

IOW, a normal workflow is 16:9 HD Project, 16:9 SD Render, with "Stretch to fill output" checked to compensate for the "slight" difference in SAR. No cropping necessary.

Is there some special need that I am missing?

When I do what I think I hear you saying (I may be missing something) is to squeeze 16:9 into a 4:3 frame.

I don't like the idea of video squished into the frame. My preference would be to see it cropped. Of course, this is for teaching products and not movies in the traditional sense.

Help me understand if I am missing something.
Thanks,
Rob

In order to render your video to SD, it does not need to be squished into the frame or cropped.

Once again, SD video can be 16:9 Widescreen, just the same as your HD.

If you follow the suggestions, the video will not be squished into a smaller frame.

When you say "frame" do you mean the video frame or the TV screen? Are you actually talking about playing it back on a 4:3 conventional TV screen? And you want the video to fill the screen? That is an entirely different subject, and you would have to crop the sides off using Event Pan/Crop to reduce the SAR to 4:3.

Please be specific about your needs.

When I think of the differences between HD and SD, I am automatically assuming the assigning of 16:9 to HD and 4:3 to SD. If that is an error on my part, yes I accept responsibility for it.

I am indeed refering more to the aspect ratios than the titles HD and SD. I don't want to put out an SD DVD with letterboxing. I want my DVD to indeed be 4:3 and I don't care for the option of squeezing 16:9 into a 4:3 frame. To avoid this, I have been cropping with single camera projects.

With a multicam project, like my current one, cropping is more complex. This is the reason for my original and subsequent posts. Can I do the same thing, in an easier way. With another issue with Tech Support, I mentioned my workflow and they suggestes that there is not another way to accomplish what I specifically want to do.

They suggest that most people squeeze 16:9 into 4:3 or they live with letter boxing. I understand that and that's cool.
Rob

Just to clarify.
If you make a Widescreen / 16:9 DVD then nothing gets squashed.
What changes is the Pixel Aspect Ratio (PAR). This is correctly flagged in the DVD so the player knows what to do with it.

Now the wheels can fall off if the player is not setup correctly.
If you have only a 4:3 TV then you must configure the player so it knows this. Then when the DVD player plays the 16:9 DVD it will letterbox it. If the same DVD player and DVD is connected to a 16:9 TV then you simply tell the DVD player this through it's setup menu and you get to see beautifull 16:9 video full screen.

Almost all content in most countries is now broadcast as 16:9.
Even our lone public access TV station will NOT accept 4:3 content anymore.

Bob.

OK, I finally understand.

I have hundreds of SD videos and DVDs, and only a handful of them are 4:3, so it is extremely confusing to try to follow a thread that equates the two.

EDIT: Prerendering your media or using the method you already described above may be your best bet.

Today you really cannot avoid having some form of 'boxing'.
If you make a 16:9 DVD then those few left on the planet that still have 4:3 TVs will see it letterboxed. They're a dying breed as you can pretty much no longer buy a 4:3 TV.
If you make a 4:3 DVD the majority of people are going to see it pillarboxed. This makes the content look 'dated' for lack of a better word.

If what you're concerned about is the pixels being stretched, then you're kind of out of luck no matter which way you go, neither 4:3 or 16:9 uses a 1:1 PAR.

Bob.