Widescreen on AVI

Widetrack wrote on 5/12/2005, 10:10 AM
I thought I'd figured widescreen out. Done lots of widescreen DVDs in Vegas, everything going smoothly after the initial learning curve.

But.....

Now a client--a TV station using DVCPRO 50 gear--wants me to deliver a program as an AVI file in "widescreen". They say they don't mean widescreen anamorphic, or "letterboxed" where a 4:3 frame has phony black bars covering the top and bottom or the screen...just "widescreen".

I don't even know what that means. Video frames in AVI files are always 4:3, right? And the only way to make them widescreen is to bring them back into Vegas, then render them to MPEG (reducing video quality, I bet), author them to a DVD and play them through a DVD player that stretches them out horizontally to make widescreen.

But these guys don't want a DVD, they want TAPE (and DVCPro50 tape to boot. Do you know how hard it is to find a facility that converts DV to DVCPRO50 without charging an arm and leg?).

They say they could take an AVI file, but that doesn't make sense.

If I make a Widescreen project in Vegas, then render it as an AVI file, I'll get 4:3 frames with tall and skinny images, right? So how would they broadcast that as actual 16:9 widescreen, and not "letterboxed"?

You gotta have a DVD player to stretch out the frames, and it's gotta have a properly authored DVD to do that/

What am I missing? And more importantly, how can I give these guys something they can use?

Thanks for any help.

WT

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 5/12/2005, 10:41 AM
How about setting the project properties to NTSC DV Widescreen (or PAL, if appropriate)? That will set the PAR to 1.2121 (or 1.4568 for PAL). The image will still be 720x480 (or 720x576 for PAL) pixels, but the playback device will (or should) stretch it out to 16:9 when displaying it. This format gets stored on DV tape just like normal 4:3 DV.
Widetrack wrote on 5/12/2005, 12:14 PM
Sorry, I don't get it. Are you suggesting going PAR 1.2121 to an AVI file?

If so, then the only stretching would be displaying 1.2121 pixels as PAR 1.4568. My algebra is rusty: is the difference there the same as that batween 4:3 and 16:9 ?

I can't give this client a DV tape because they only have DVCPRO 50 gear.

Chienworks wrote on 5/12/2005, 12:34 PM
1.2121 is the figure for NTSC. 1.4568 is the figure for PAL. They don't mix; choose one or the other.

The difference from 4:3 to 16:9 is 0.90909 to 1.2121. When set to widescreen the same 720 pixels will now be stretched out wider to fill the screen. All you have to do to accomplish this is set the project properties to NTSC DV Widescreen. If your material is already in widescreen format then you're done. If it's in 4:3 format then you'll have to crop it to fill the frame.

Render this to a DV .avi file. The .avi file will include a header indicating that the video is PAR 1.2121 for widescreen playback. This holds true whether you print the file back to tape, burn it to an optical disc, send it through FTP or email, or even send them a hard drive. The system they play it back on will read the PAR from the file header and display it 16:9 widescreen.

(If you use PAL, the above still holds true, but you will use the PAL DV Widescreen template instead of NTSC.)
Widetrack wrote on 5/12/2005, 12:55 PM
Chienworks:

You say, "...print the file back to tape, burn it to an optical disc, send it through FTP or email, or even send them a hard drive. The system they play it back on will read the PAR from the file header and display it 16:9 widescreen."

Even a plain old tape deck will stretch it out to widescreen? I didn't know this would happen.

I will try it, and thank you.

WT
Chienworks wrote on 5/12/2005, 1:04 PM
Well, i did append that with "(should)". I won't guarantee that every tapedeck will, but they are supposed to. I would say it's a very good bet that a television station will have equipment that handles this properly, especially if they want widescreen material.
Widetrack wrote on 5/12/2005, 1:26 PM
I am duly informed, and will take the high road and assume they can actually handle what they ask for. remembering that they ARE after all a PBS station ;-]
B_JM wrote on 5/12/2005, 1:26 PM
DVCPro50 is anamorphic on the tape (for wide screen) .. so there must be some miss-information going on ..

Are they using the P2 system maybe?

Not that it really matters - DVCPro50 IS anamorphic wide screen
Widetrack wrote on 5/12/2005, 1:30 PM
So if I render a widescreen project to an AVI file with the DV cocec [?] and they can record the AVI to DVCPRO 50, we should be good to go, yes?

Phil_A wrote on 5/12/2005, 1:42 PM
As stated, you must set your project properties to NTSC DV WIDESCREEN... But when you render, don't forget to select the NTSC DV WDESCREEN template, as well. If you render with the NTSC DV template, it will end up letterboxed - Rendering with the NTSC DV WIDESCREEN template, all will end up as stated above and everyone will be happy.