Safe Areas in Preview Window

AlanADale wrote on 11/14/2009, 3:24 AM
I think that I understand this but not entirely sure so thought it best to ask before making a complete mess of things lol.

Inside the preview window I have two white broken borders which I believe are called the safe areas. Now I intend producing a show comprising of various short video clips from my Canon SX1 plus various jpg image files, the latter being in either landscape or portrait orientation. Now when I import a portrait image for example onto the time line the image is to be seen completely filling the preview screen i.e. top to bottom.

Question: is it necessary/desirable that using Event Pan/Crop that I reduce the size of this image so that it fits within the outer white boundary and by leaving the image at full size e.g. outside of the white boundary lines that the image will eventually be cropped upon render.

I don't know if this makes any difference but the intention is to burn this project to DVD for playback on a home DVD Player. By the way, under the Preview Screen I note Project 720 x 576 x 32, 25.000i. As PAL DV is the only thing that I can find in the Project Properties coming anywhere near to what I want, I presume these readings are correct. Please advise if wrong. And what exactly does DV stand for - is this DVD? The x32 also confuses the hell out of me.

Apologies if perhaps wrong terminology has been used here but I'm a total beginner to all this.

Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 11/14/2009, 6:33 AM
Let's start at the beginning.
-- DV is a video format. It is not the same format as DVD. Your SX1 does not shoot DV, so it is not an appropriate template for the Project Properties you want.
-- Set your properties to match your footage. Open the Project Properties dialog and click on the yellow "folder" icon in the upper right hand corner, navigate to one of your SX1 files, and click to select it. Then click "Apply" and close the project dialog. Your Project Properties have now been correctly matched to your source media.
-- The "safe areas" grids are just an approximation, and are overly conservative. They are mainly to simulate the overscan on CRT televisions. The best thing to do is turn them off and forget about it.
-- To make a DVD, you would use one of the DVDA MPEG-2 video templates and a DVDA AC3 audio template for rendering. As their name suggests, these rendered files will then import into DVD Architect and allow you to author a DVD.

Your best friend is the tutorials that come with the program. Follow the interactive steps to achieve best results, and feel free to post back later if you get stuck.
AlanADale wrote on 11/14/2009, 7:48 AM
Thanks - that's very helpful........(I think) lol

The tutorial that comes with the programme might well be helpful to you - obviously an experienced user (?) but to me they are, um, shall we say, a little less so. However, that might not be due to the way the content is explained but more down to my age so we'll let that one go.

Having now executed the first part of your explanation - (the Project Properties part) - I now have a large preview window: Project 1920 x 1080 x 32, 30.00p Preview 480x270x32, 30.00p - this last part as I have set the preview to quarter. As a DVD has no where near this resolution I take it that the DVD authoring aspect of the project will take care of this discrepancy without quality loss?

With regards to the 'safe area' grids - my concern here was that the presentation, which is essentially a celebration of my wifes 50th birthday in which she wishes to do a short video introduction/ending followed by a multitude of memorable photographs taken from childhoold to the present day, is a mixture of various size images which have all been scanned into the computer, are different sizes (some square, some portrait format and others landscape format). Because I have added frames to these images including drop shadows etc, it is important that the entire image is displayed without some of it being chopped off. This is what prompted my question of whether or not I should ensure the still images were kept within the outer grid frame.

I wonder if perhaps you could explain in more detail the second part of your post - the video templates. As you can imagine I'm at the practicing stage at the moment with just one video clip and a couple of images in the project to ensure that I get it right. If I click on 'Make Movie' I'm presented with a dialogue giving me a few options one of which is to Burn DVD - obviously my intended choice. The next option is to select the type of disc to burn to which I select DVD. This in turn throws up the info as to the audio and video paths. Even choosing the option Project > Render As does not give me the options of choosing the video and audio templates that you suggest. What is shown is the Template DVD PAL. Could you kindly explain the path to being able to choose the options you describe? Is it even necessary or will choosing the DVD template automatically set these two formats?

Sorry to go on but one further question now crosses my mind - one of the options under the Make Movie dialogue is the 'stretch video to fill output frame size (do not letterbox). Should this be checked or left unchecked?

Thanks once again - I do appreciate your help.

Viddy wrote on 11/14/2009, 7:50 AM
Hi

I totally concur with musicvid but thought I'd add a bit more about the 'Safe Areas' which seems to be your main issue.

The following does assume you have set up your template correctly (i.e. the video pixel dimensions your camera produces is matched in your template setup).

When you look at the preview window in Vegas (without any 'safe area' marking shown - or ignoring them at least) the full preview area represents and shows you your total area (pixel dimensions) video footage. There is no cropping - you see the whole video area.

If you were to only ever view your edited videos on a computer then that 'total uncropped area' is what you would see in your media player software.

However, if you intend to watch your video on a conventional CRT television you will lose some of the edge areas of your video. This is because a CRT TV never shows video right up to the original edges - it's a limitation of all CRT TVs which we have to live with and, to make matters worse, some TVs are going to effectively 'crop' your video more than others. This is the effect called 'overscan' which musicvid mentions. And this is why you need to be aware of what part of your video (when viewed on the preview window in Vegas) is going to be 'seen' or 'Safe' on 99% of TVs.

This is why 'Safe Areas' are optionally shown in video editing software. When the Safe Area is clicked on in Vegas anything on the video that sits within the 'inner rectangle' is what Sony feel is going to be safe, and therefore visible on any TV. The standard 'Safe Area' setting in Vegas actually is not far out when I test the video on my Sony 36" CRT TV. However it might not be so accurate on your setup when played on your CRT TV.

For most video editing, this safe area can be somewhat ignored as musicvid suggests. However, if you have critical on screen information such as subtitles text, or logos etc, then you should be aware of the 'Safe Area' and make sure your text/logos aren't going to get chopped off when watched on some TVs.

Personally I do tests before embarking on a big video editing project. I will render out some footage to a DVD-type file (make sure you have footage with plenty of stuff or text that's close to all four edges). Then I play that on my "test TV" - that will be the TV that I use all the time and consider to be the main one I want to get things right on. I will then watch the video, and even take still pictures of the TV screen, and then see how much of the four edges has been lost on my TV compared to the Vegas editing preview window.

Generally speaking I think you will find the default safe area markings to be a good guide - but you can tweak the settings of the Safe Area if you wish. Don't get hung up about this - it's only really going to be important if you have something such as text that sits close to the edge.

I use subtitles quite a lot in my videos and experience has taught me to be well aware of just how low I can sit the subtitle text on the video. The tests I describe above give me the confidence to know how the text will be on my TV.

Hope that helps

Viddy
Viddy wrote on 11/14/2009, 7:52 AM
sorry Boy Atlantis - I must have posted my reply just as you were doing/posting your reply to musicvid. Hope that it's still useful though.

Viddy
AlanADale wrote on 11/14/2009, 7:59 AM
Thanks viddy - we must have been typing at the same time with the result being that my previous post appeared before yours. Yes; I'll be following your advice with a test burn of a similar project and play it back to see how it turns out. For info, the DVD that will eventually be burned will be played by using a DVD player connect to a Beamer - (so called in Germany, I think the English word would be Projector (?) before being beamed/projected onto a screen. When viewed at home the DVD will be displayed on an HDTV although this is secondary. The important display will be on the evening of her birthday celebrations via the Beamer/Projector and screen.
musicvid10 wrote on 11/14/2009, 8:44 AM
The Project Properties affect the Preview. For best results they should be set the same as your media.

The Render Properties affect the Rendered files. They must be set for the desired output, in your case a DVD. You then choose the template to correspond to your desired format. If indeed it is PAL DVD, then that is the correct template.

The Project Properties and the Render Properties are not mutually dependent. Hope that explains it clearly.

As for your "safe areas" question, every single TV set in the world is different. If you custom crop and position your image for a perfect fit on one TV it will be completely different on another. Just put a matte behind your image and don't try to register a frame perfectly because it won't work. Overscan is there to compensate for average differences in different TV screens. It is worse on CRTs than flat panels.

Why don't you render some files and risk making a few mistakes? That's a good way to learn. DVD blanks are cheap, so if you need to burn a couple to see how it looks, you've lost little. I keep a couple of DVD-RW discs around if I need to do multiple tests.

I can assure you that the tutorials are not geared to experienced users or to a specific age. They are again, the best starting point, if you take the time to learn them step by step. Good luck!
AlanADale wrote on 11/20/2009, 5:33 AM
OK, just an update to this having now played around with VMS a bit and burnt a few rewritable DVD's to see how things turned out.

First, I set the Properties as advised although at the first attempt I wasn't sure should I set it to one of the jpeg files or the HD video files. In the end I opted for one of the larger video files. Under the preview box I now have 1920x1080x32, 30.00p

Secondly, I set the Overlays to indicate the Safe Areas. This is what caused me a few minor issues and several DVD re-burns to get it right. It turns out that in order to view the entire jpeg images that I had to adjust them so that no part of the image lay outside of the INNER safe area markings. Without going back over all the posts (not viewable whilst typing this) I believe one poster stated that these safe areas were rather conservative - or words to that effect.

In the end though, I have now managed to place a couple of short HD videos within the timeline, a few still jpeg images (not extending beyond the inner safe area markings), a few effects and some music and got the lot safely burned to DVD which appear good when played by on DVD player/HDTV.