screen format

Per1 wrote on 6/12/2007, 5:05 PM
Hi,

I have PAL 3:4 footage and I would appreciate what you guys advice/suggest regarding:

1. Should the Vegas project be set to 9:16 PAL WS or 3:4 PAL?

2. If 9:16 WS - shall I "track motion" the "too small" frame (it has black left/right margins) to fill entire area? This will mean magnifying the image. Turning off aspect ratio just "twist" the image and that is not good.

3. If 3:4 - shall I "letterbox" the image to get "9:16".

4. I also need to make a NTSC version for the US market of the footage - any conciderations that needs to be taken regarding dimensions and project properties (9:16 or 3:4)?

What are your comments, suggestions/advice in this matter?

What pros. and cons. are there for 9:16 vs. 3:4?

Thanks.

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 6/12/2007, 6:35 PM
1: What do you want the project to be? Set it to that. If you want 4:3, go with it. If you want 16:9 go with that. If you want 3927:2164 then go with that. It's an artistic call, not a technical one.

2: What do you want to do? Do you want to fill the frame with image and thereby lose some from the top and bottom? Or do you want to preserve all of the original frame leaving empty areas on the sides? Or some combination somewhere in between?

3: What do you want it to be? If you're putting 4:3 video in a 4:3 frame, maybe leaving it 4:3 is a good idea? Or do you want it to look widescreen?

4: Probably nothing to worry about. Vegas handles the conversion quite nicely without you even having to think about it.

So, basically, you need to decide what you want your project to look like. We don't know anything about your project, what video you have, what your audience is, what look you're trying for, etc. So we can't help you make the artistic decision.

4:3 Advantages: people are used to it, most televisions are still this format. Easier vertical composition. Disadvantages: it looks kinda old fashioned, especially when shown on newer widescreen TVs.

16:9 Advantages: people seem to like it, newer TVs are being made in this format and folks get irrationally upset when 4:3 material leaves the sides blank, easier horizontal composition. Disadvantages: lower resolution when working with SD material, difficult to compose scenes with tall vertical objects (such as people), folks get irrationally upset when viewing widescreen material on a 4:3 screen and see blank areas on top and bottom.
ritsmer wrote on 6/13/2007, 12:28 AM
And it could be a good idea to make the project in the same screen format as you will use for watching the final video.

If you do hobby videos and mostly watch them on the family 42 or 50 inch TV-set with a native resolution of -say- 1360x768 - then make the resoloution 1360x768 (which is nearly 16:9) as this theoretically gives the best quality:
You will not have to watch black sidebars and the video showing computer/media center must not stretch/zoom some other format to the screens native format - which of course also would add some kind of "noise"...

BTW: if the screen claims 1366x768 then test this format and also 1360x768 as the later might give a significantly clearer picture on some monitors.