Rendering to a 16:9 format

furgie@taletold.com wrote on 5/4/2005, 5:38 PM
Can anyone help me with regard to 16:9 formatting using Vegas 6?

I have a DCR-TRV320 Sony Digital Handycam that I’ve shot my film with, using the wide screen format (16:9) that is built into the camera. I’m using Vegas 6 to do the editing and for the life of me, I can’t seem to render the project and get that wide screen formatting you see being used with wide screen DVD films. I would like my project to have the look of a 16:9 format on my standard TV but it keeps defaulting to 720X480 aspect ratio.
I must have burned through about 20 DVD+R discs after trying a number of different settings that keep showing up squished or stretched. (On a side note... I’m getting pretty good at tossing these discs across the room.)

I would deeply appreciate any help I could get on this. Thanks.

Comments

Paul_Holmes wrote on 5/4/2005, 7:18 PM
Are you setting the file properties template to Widescreen?

Do you render the final project using a widescreen template? (either avi for intermediate renders or the Widescreen MPEG template for final render for DVD)

What authoring program are you using? With DVDA3 you can use both 4X3 and 16X9 movies on one DVD. With some authoring programs if the DVD is set up to be a 4X3, not widescreen, it won't show properly.

Finally, is your DVD player set up properly to display widescreen?
furgie@taletold.com wrote on 5/4/2005, 7:38 PM
The properties is set to “NTSC DV Widescreen (720x480, 29.970 fps)”

I have rendered my project using a number of setting, which includes “wide screen” where ever available.

I’m using Vegas Video 6 to edit and render the film and Sony’s DVD Architect 3.0 to burn the DVDs. I also have Roxio DVD Builder 1.2.

And... My DVD player does play “wide screen” movies... that’s all I buy.

Thanks for helping me out!
Paul_Holmes wrote on 5/4/2005, 7:48 PM
You've got me stumped! I'm using V6 and DVDA3 too. The only thing different I do than what you mentioned is that I do a prepare (create the video and audio ts files) to a folder, then use Record Now Max to burn the DVD. I'm pretty sure that's not the problem, though. Just double check that throughout the whole process you're rendering widescreen, seeing widescreen in Vegas, etc. The next step might be making sure you haven't done something in DVDA3 (changed a setting or something) that goofs it up. I've spent hours in the past tearing my hair out over something and it turns out that I had inadvertantly set one thing wrong.
Serena wrote on 5/4/2005, 8:00 PM
Have you checked the option "stretch video to fill frame (do not letterbox)"? This will give you an anamorphic "print" that will be stretched horizontally to fill the 16:9 when displayed. This option is on the pop-up window that shows when you select "render as".
furgie@taletold.com wrote on 5/4/2005, 8:42 PM
Thanks Paul...

Serena, that is the one thing I hadn't tried. I thought that by doing that, it stretched the picture vertically to fill the screen. Eliminating the letterbox view.... I’ll give it a shot tonight.

Thanks!
JohnnyRoy wrote on 5/4/2005, 9:25 PM
Does your camera record in true anamorphic 16:9 or does it just letterbox 4:3? I would guess its just adding black bars to the top and bottom of a 4:3 image giving the illusion of 16:9 but its really letterboxed 4:3. If this is the case, and you really want your footage to appear to be 16:9 you will have to apply a 16:9 crop to all the events in the entire project to get rid of the letterboxing your camera did to fool you. Then when you render with a DV Widescreen template it will appear correctly (i.e., it will fill a 16:9 screen). If you plan on shooting like this a lot, Celluloid and Ultimate S are two tools that can help you quickly convert your project to Widescreen and even give it a Film Look if you want.

~jr