Wide Screen/Pixel Aspect Ratio

ccliffy wrote on 10/4/2009, 7:48 AM

I am working on a project mixing HD 1920x1080 and SD 720 x 480 with both sources being wide screen

Final output will be SD and vegas project properties set to NTSC Wide Screen with pixel aspect ratio of 1.2121

With the imported clips - do I have to change Properties>Media and manually change aspect ratio to 1.2121? My HD footage has aspect ratio of 1.000 (Square) which seems odd to me

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 10/4/2009, 7:55 AM

As long as the clips have the correct pixel aspect ratios set then Vegas will take care of everything for you.

Why does 1.0 sound odd to you? If the clips are 1920x1080 at 1.0 PAR then the frame size is 16:9, which is what you want.

Remember that "1.2121" doesn't mean widescreen. It only means that the pixels are going to be stretched out about 21% wider than they are tall. In this case that just happens to be what is necessary to make 720x480 look "widecreen-ish". On the other hand, 1.0 is exactly what is needed to fit 1920x1080 into a widescreen frame. HDV is 1440x1080 so a PAR of 1.3333 is required to make it fit. "Widescreen" refers to the shape of the frame, nothing more or less, and doesn't mandate any particular PAR. The pixel aspect ratios are only there to allow the physical frame dimensions of the file fit in the desired frame shape.

ccliffy wrote on 10/4/2009, 8:13 AM

I guess odd part was that other clip (SD/WS) had a PAR of 1.2121
your explanation makes sense (as usual)

thanks !