Use MediaInfo to find out what the actual pixel aspect ratio of your source material is, then check the properties of the imported clip(s) in Vegas, change if necessary on each imported clip and then set the project properties to match; render with the standard PAL templates.

Thanks for your advice. Neither solution works.

When I set the render to PAL Widescreen I get a squashed video where everything is out of proportion (long and thin.) I even tried the stretch to fill option but it made no difference.

The source material of the video clips all have the same pixel aspect ratio and I am also using still images which are 1920x1080. The project is set to the same pixel ratio as the clips and still images.

The problem is that when I render to PAL it is not full screen. The quality and aspect ratio is fine - it's just not full screen - there are black bands around the video. I tried stretching the video to fit but that just creates a squashed video like the widescreen solution.

I never used to have this problem with Vegas. I could use any combination of media and it would render it out to PAL perfectly. Does anyone know any other solutions I could try?

I have no issues during downconversions, I always turn on the Stretch to fill option.
Without being turned on, yes it's true, you will find black bar on the left and right.

Is the project very Long ?
Perhaps you can render first to 1080 full length HD Master (or split per 30 minutes of 35Mbps MXF).

From this Full length HD master version, drop again to new timeline, set project as PAL DV Widescreen, then put the HD file, with Stretch to Fill option turned On.
If you don't want to do any stretch, use event pan/crop, to matched aspect ratio to project.

You will see images seems tall or thin, but when played back on TV, it will be correct.
In full screen 4:3 aspect ratio of DV, squared ratio is 787x576 while PAL DV/DVD standard is 720x576.

If you have HDV, and render to PAL SD, then very narrow black bars do appear on the rendered video. Most people won't notice this when viewing.

To resole the problem, do as setiawan3d (immediately above) suggests: In the Render AS dialog box, check the option to [b]Stretch to fill/[b].

Lenny

Thanks for your replies. As I stated I've already tried 'stretch to fill' and the video render is stretched vertically with two black bands either side. When I try to burn this to DVD it is still stretched vertically with the black bands.

I can't seem to find a way to render to a PAL compatible AVI without black bands all around the video. I need to find a way to make the PAL video fill the whole screen (or as much of it as possible.) 'Stretch to fill' is not working or is the wrong setting for some reason.

The project and all the clips are all 1920x1080 at 30fps. They render perfectly to HD. Unless someone can suggest a working solution I think I'll just have to render to HD and then convert to DV in another program. I really don't want to do this because it will affect the quality of the video slightly and it seems crazy that a pro NLE can't render to PAL straight forwardly without needing to spend hours going through trial and error adjusting settings and burning loads of sample renders to DVD.

I'm not the most technical person in the world but I can use Lightwave, After Effects, InDesign and Photoshop without too many problems yet rendering to PAL in Vegas completely stumps me.

Your source is 30p so rendering that to 25p mightn't look too good but that's another problem.

You say you render to "PAL Widescreen", do you have any more details than that?

Traditional SD PAL DV does use non square pixels and many players have issues with that as there's no flag to denote it. However you say you've done this in the past, something has to have changed.
Other thought, you say you have 1920x1080 stills on the timeline but what about the video, what exactly is it?
Final thought, have you somehow turned on "Adjust Source to better match....."

Bob.