I have used the PAL DV Widescreen template and the video has been taken with my Sony CAM which has a 16:9 setting.

The video previews on the monitor in 4:3 so the footage is squeezed horizontally. The transitions show the black borders at top and bottom.

Do you think it could be the TV is not supporting 16:9 correctly. If it is this why would the transitions shown as widescreen - are they actually letterboxed? i.e VV is mixing true 16:9 and letterbox formats??

paulwhite:

Let me make sure I understand:

- you shot 16:9
- you are using the PAL Widescreen template
- with external monitor, clips show up on your widescreen TV in 4:3 mode, squeezed
- transitions, however, trigger widescreen mode on your TV

So far, is that right?

Does Vegas pick up the fact that the camera clips are widecreen, or did you have to modify their media properties? If the latter, I'd say your camcorder is not properly marking it's video as widescreen, which would explain why your TV is not picking up on it.

Finally, do you have the latest version of Vegas (3.0c) -- I think there was a PAL widescreen bug fixed from an earlier version.

///d@

Perhaps my understanding of profiles and 16:9 is off here.

My external monitor is a 4:3 TV.

The clips have been shot in 16:9 and display correctly with the VV preview is set to square pixels.

I had a PAL DV Widescreen set in the properties, I have changed this to PAL DV and everything displays on the external monitor in the correct ratio.

When I do this all of the footage appears as though it all will be rendered judging by the preview quality. Has this been letterboxed? Does this then impact the final quality?

The final target will be DVD played on a widescreen TV. I thought the idea with 16:9 was the TV pixel dimensions were different.

Have I completely lost the plot :-)

Are you confused? I am.

Yes, in facts it's confusing enough I think someone should write a book <g>.

If your ultimate destination is true anamorphic widescreen DVD, you'll want the widescreen project and render template. This will have the best quality for widescreen sets, and for 4:3 sets, the DVD player will electronically letterbox it on-the-fly. This is how most new commercial movie DVDs are done.

Unfortunately, since you don't have a widescreen set, you'll be viewing squeezed images on your external monitor. With "Display Square Pixels" ON in video preview, you'll be able to see the correct aspect on the computer monitor.

If you want to see letterboxed video on your external 4:3 monitor, here's a good trick you can do. In project properties, set your video template to DV (not widescreen) and then change the height to 360. You might as well create a new template with these settings. The caveot is that you're best off letting Vegas compute these frames on the fly and NOT using any pre-rendered sections, because pre-renders will render to full-screen and will allow FX and motion to go into the letterbox area.

///d@

Thanks, I think I have got my head around it now.

My main set is a 4:3 large format rear projection, my preview monitor is 4:3. My prefered option for filming is 16:9

Is it possible to get a preview monitor that has a switchable 16:9/4:3 mode. The rear projection set has it and auto switches between the two.

That way if my ultimate display device is either 16:9 or 4:3 I can preview correctly at the best quality/aspect ratio on the external preview monitor.

I do have to do work in both formats with both formats as the target display format.

Regards, Paul

Yes, you can, we have one here, the Sony PVM-14N6U.
///d@

Thanks, my orginal logic was off.

I have looked at the Sony and a 10" monitor from JVC, it's clearly the way to go.

Regards, Paul

I have found a Panasonic 14" TV that has 4:3 and 16:9 modes. It works really well with my widescreen footage.

On the crossfades the preview on the external monitor shows additional bars on the top and bottom. It appears to be adding the letterbox to footage that is already in 16:9.

Am I doing something wrong here?

I have been working with this some more.

It appears that any frames that have to be recompressed are letterboxed. This happens to transitions, stills on the timeline etc.

The frames display correctly on the preview window but add bars top and bottom when displayed on the external monitor.

If I selectively prerender the option not to letterbox is available and these sections then display correctly. The Dynamic RAM preview does not have this option and therefore adds the bars.

Does anyone know if there is a global option that allows you to not letterbox on recompressed frames so the whole timeline displays correctly on an external monitor.

Regards, Paul

what are your current project settings, and what are your current options>prefs>video devoc>project format settings?

My current project settings are the PAL DV Widescreen template which reads

Width 720
Height 576
Field Order - Lower field first
Pixel Aspect Ration 1.4568 PAL DV Widescreen
Frame Rate 25.00 PAL
Full Resolution Rendering Quality - Best (this has been on preview)

Advanced
Motion Blur - None
Interlace - None

Options Prefs/Video Device

Device OHCP Compliant IEEE 1394/DV

Details

This device supports recompression
Hot Pluggable Device
Device Connected

If project format is invalid.....

PAL DV Widescreen

Sync offset slider is in the middle

Recompress Edited Frames is checked.

Regards, Paul

Please confirm you have Vegas 3.0c (the current version). There was a bug in earlier versions that had to do with wide/normal monitor auto-switching.

Yes it is 3.0c

Hello SonicEPM,

Is there an problem here it feels as though this may have been dropped.

Regards, Paul

Now I'm confused.

a) If you prerender a transition as PAL widescreen DV, does that display correctly ? (use the default template, change nothing, no stretch to fill frame)

b) If you prerender a transition as PAL DV (non-widescreen), does that display correctly on the external monitor? (use the default template, change nothing, no stretch to fill frame)

If either a or b works, set your options>prefs>video device> ...conform to: a or b (whatever worked above)

If neither of these works, we'll dig further.

Your confused, I'm in a different timezone and I'm going to bed with a severe headache every night :-)

Appreciate you sticking with me on this.

Just to make sure I have not done something stupid.

DV shot on Sony CAM with 16:9 setting

File -> Properties set to PAL DV Widescreen
Options -> Pref -> Vid Dev set to PAL DV Widescreen
Preview window set to display square pix
External monitor is 14" TV with 4:3 and 16:9 switch, set to 16:9

With these settings the events and transitions display properley on the computer monitor preview window. If I select display on external monitor any transition where frame recompressed is displayed is then letter boxed when played from the timeline or Dynamic RAM Preview at the transition point only. The rest of the event displays without recompression correctly.

If I selectively prerender with the PAL DV Widescreen template and without checking the box for stretch to fill frame the transition displays correctly on the monitor preview and the external monitor.

If I prerender a selection using the PAL DV template then it letterboxes the whole of the prerender selection. (Did you mean to leave the File -> Properties at PAL DV Widescreen)

Changing the Options -> Prefs -> Video Device seems to have no impact.

It appears that if I have the widescreen setting in use any recompressed frames are letterboxed on the external monitor.

Does this help?

I find this whole discussion rather interesting. When I first got Vegas a few months ago I chose to edit widescreen using a 4x3 monitor using the widescreen template. At first the horizontally compressed image bothered me, but after a while I realized it was just as easy to cut, correct color and contrast, and apply filters in this mode as it was when I tried to force it to display correctly on my 4X3 display. It's like the experiment they did years ago, making people wear goggles that turned the world upside down. Eventually their brains adjusted and righted the world for them.

One other point is that I decided it wasn't worth producing real widescreen since filming in widescreen causes a 25% loss in resolution. I still film in it, but after editing I use DV FilmMaker to create a letterboxed 4X3 version. This way, if it's shown on a 16X9 monitor it isn't stretched out, which makes the loss of resoltion all the more obvious. The only way to truly film widescreen full resolution is to buy an anamorphic lens. Those are expensive!

Hello Paul,

Help me eliminate something here.

On your setup using widescreen media and a 4:3 monitor what happens on the display when any frames are compressed?

Whoops! You lost me on the question about compression! You mean horizontally compressed or squeezed on the monitor, or are you talking about DV compression? I think the reason I accepted editing widescreen on a 4X3 monitor without having to see the black bars on top and bottom was because when I tried to edit widescreen with a non-widescreen format (the normal DV-NTSC template) it looked right on the monitor but it slowed the frame-rate down. Then add filters to that etc. and it slows down even more.

Oh (just read back through some posts) -- the other reason was what you mentioned in your second post. Yes, the transitions and cross-fades and filters applied to the black bars on top and bottom -- so I took the path of least resistence and edited purely in widescreen mode. This allowed all transitions and filters to be applied purely to the video in the right places and aspect ratios.

Not sure I follow you.

Do you get a consistent aspect ration when previewed on an external monitor i.e it does not change through transitions when VV shows frame recompressed in the preview window.

If you do can you reply with the aspect ratio of the original media, file -> properties settings.

Yes. I capture the source files that were shot in 16X9. I then edit the clips with the DV NTSC Widescreen Template. That way you have no problems except one -- You see it compressed horizontally on a 4X3 monitor, but as I said, that doesn't really bother me. Transitions and effects are applied and appear correctly. After completing my project I render it as one avi using the widescreen template. With that avi I then process it into a 4X3 movie with letterbox (using other software), but that's not important to the discussion here.

Just for my peace of mind.

When you preview on the external monitor and the timeline goes over a transition does your picture change to having bars top and bottom for the period of the transition only and then change back to the squashed view.

By the way I have a Panasonic TV for the external montitor that can switch between 4:3 and 16:9 aspects - in the UK it was £90 - a cheap solution if you have to work with both formats.