Need Help: Rendering 1080i project as 720x480 WS

elvindeath wrote on 3/7/2009, 4:23 PM

Hi all. I tried searching for an answer to this, but couldn't find it. Hope you all can help.

I shot a bunch of footage during a recent trip on a Canon HV30 HD Camcorder, in normal mode. I'm using Sony Vegas Pro 7.0, and have put together a great looking (if I do say so myself) 1080i Project. I would like to "downsize" my project to share with my family via DVD, so I tried rendering as a NTSC DV WS 720x480 project.

The DVD looks good, but in many instances, the far left or far right of the screen is chopped off. The project looks fine in 1080i on Preview, and looks like there is plenty of space when previewing at 720x480 in Vegas ... but the final "DVD" clearly has elements that are not centered properly, or are cut off.

Any ideas what I can do to "downscale" my project, yet maintain the proportions and appearance of the 1080i project ?

For what it's worth, the project properties that I tried rendering with are as follows:

Format: Custom (720x480, 29.970 fps)
Field Order: Upper field first (was getting blurring with lower field first)
Rendering Quality: Best
Motion Blur: Gaussian

Comments

elvindeath wrote on 3/7/2009, 6:04 PM

Call off the dogs ... I think I solved my own problem.

I rechecked my render as settings and realized I had rendered the project using the Mainconcepts Mpeg-2 codec.

Re-rendered the project using .AVI and it looked great. Better than my old DV, that's for sure.

TheHappyFriar wrote on 3/7/2009, 6:10 PM

rendering to mpeg-2 widescreen for DVD should work just fine (I've done it). maybe you were rendering to 4:3 or something else?

elvindeath wrote on 3/8/2009, 7:42 AM

Nope. I double checked it - all the settings on the project and the render were the same. The only change I main was changing from Mpeg-2 to AVI. Once I did that, the project rendered in perfect proportion, with no cutoff. No idea why.