The problem is that you have vertical still and vegas resample to horizontal. It is going to be a chalenge. Even if you try to resize in any other graphic program it will look like you have now. The option I see is to render as 640X480 in mpeg2 assuming that your stills are now in 480X640 or 768X1024(vertical). The 1024X768 or 640X480 are horizontal.

I have brought in stills, both horizontal and vertical, and used maintain aspect ratio and then rendered out - no issues at all. As I said it depends on what is needed - you may end up having black on the tops and/or sides but the aspect ratio will be correct for the still and it will look fine, not squished. The problem it seems TDolce is having right now is that the aspect ratio on the stills is *not* being retained thusly the sqeezing. If you resize with Photoshop 7 there are templates for video/film and it could easly be brought into that to resize and crop and still maintain correct aspect ratio.

As filmy wrote, maintain aspect is important.

If your project's set to one of the dv templates or similar with the pixel aspect set to .9 whatever, try setting the clip's pixel aspect ratios to match by rightclicking on them in the timeline and selecting properties. Doing this it's also important to do a test render to make sure aspect is maintained with the original. After rendering test at same settings as intended output, on playback your DV footage should look correct, & pausing on a still, compare it to the original.

If you've imported stills that are too tall (or not wide enough) to begin with, you can set the pan/crop dialog to cut off a portion of the top/bottom - just enter the new size in the boxes in the upper left or drag the crop border.

Thanks,..great tips from everyone!

TDolce if worse comes to worst, if you have photoshop you can do an automatic resize on all your pix without having to resize each one. Its in File, Automate, Batch. But you first have to record an action on one of the pictures, save the action, and then you can do a batch conversion that will convert all the pictures without your intervention. Let me know if you need any help with this.

I'd heard that digital stills were to be formatted to 655x480

Can someone confirm or deny?

I'm looking forward to learning the truth!

XOG

I'd heard that digital stills were to be formatted to 655x480

Can someone confirm or deny?

I'm looking forward to learning the truth!

XOG

XOG, yes, i'll confirm, provisionally.

That's the correct size for NTSC images if you want to import them and have them fill the entire frame exactly without distorting or resizing. 786x576 is the proper size for PAL. Of course, any multiple of those dimensions (either integral or fractional) will do just as well.

On the other hand, any size picture dropped on the timeline will show up in the video. Maintain aspect ratio and it won't distort. Crop as desired if you want to have just part of the picture fill the frame. In short, generally this is something you don't have to worry about.

All interesting advice.
I would create a 720x480 canvas in Photoshop (black background works) and paste my still onto it, and size and position the new layer to preference (maintaining aspect of course).

Then I would resize the image to 655x480 WITHOUT constraining proportions, and save the result as a .bmp
Then I would drag it onto the Vegas timeline.

Here's an example of a "DV-Ready" still.
ftp://shell.dimensional.com/users/musicvid/pub/images/logo.jpg

"Then I would resize the image to 655x480 WITHOUT constraining proportions, and save the result as a .bmp ... Then I would drag it onto the Vegas timeline."

Extra work I think to do the same thing as a couple of clicks in Vegas.

Please, try this... Maybe it'll help clear up some confusion that seems to persist re: importing stills.

Create an image (or just grab one off your drive), and size it to 720 x 480. Import it into Vegas with the proj set to DV with the .9 aspect. Check out the image in the preview window. Now right click on the image and set the aspect in properties from 1.0 to the DV .9. Check the image in the preview window, and render a test clip. Play the movie on your PC using wmplayer or any other that understands the DV .9 aspect and will play the video at proper aspect (ie: 720 x 480). Open your original still - as nec resize for viewing and compare to the paused video re: aspect etc.

Not a big deal to resize and move windows around, as just looking for or at the aspect ratio - the images will be identical. VV4c is a program, and like any other software it has no intelligence of it's own. When you set the aspect ratio of your still to .9 DV, you tell Vegas not to mess with it, not to resample or anything else, that it's what you want to fill the frame. It will look off in the preview perhaps (squished compared to the original), but the rendered proj is what matters. And yes, same thing could be accomplished by *UNchecking* maintain aspect.

Point is you don't want or need to change something that is already correct. All you're doing is adding a resample in your image editor - heaven forbid the resizing were to be done with a crop, which would throw everything off.

Sorry for the soapbox, but I can't find fault with the above test, and it works. Now it may not be obvious on a TV screen, where you can't overlay windows, so in that case maybe get your 720 x 480 image, overlay a grid, resize a copy to 655, render both from the timeline (with the full size picture set to .9), and play it back on your tv monitor. If you're currently cropping your images to get to ~655, try one of those too.

Simplest thing to do is to:

1. Right-click on one of your pictures and select "Video Event Pan/Crop."
2. In the Video Event Pan/Crop dialog box, right click anywhere on the picture and select "Match Output Aspect."
3. Left-click anywhere on the picture (in the dialog box) and move it around to get the cropping you like.