I have spent 2 hours trying to letterbox 4:3 into 16:9...

Right, this is really aggravating me now... I've spent the last 2 hours fannying around trying to work out the ratio of this that and the other and I'm not getting anywhere.

I have some 4:3 footage that I would simply like to letterbox into 16:9. I am using Sony Vegas 7.0b.

I plan to do this by making a PNG file with a pure blue background, black bands, and then keying out the blue background.

So, I took the ratio of 720x576... which means to letterbox into 16:9, it's 576x0.75 = 432 (Visible area), then 576-432 = 144, divided by two bands = 72 pixels per black band.



Well, the bands are WAY too shallow, so that can't be right.

I have also discovered 720x576 does NOT equal a 4:3 (1.33:1) ratio, but instead, a 1.25:1 ratio. In NTSC, however, it is exactly 1:33.1 (720x540).

So so far this is what I have:



It seems that the area might actually be 766x576, as in order for it to truly be 1.33 on the x axis, there have to be 766 pixels there, if the vertical = 576.

Can anybody enlighten me as to what I'm doing wrong? Would be much appreciated.

Cheers

[Cole McDonald]

isn't there a widescreen matte you can just slap on as a filter in Vegas?

[Emre Safak]

The recommended way to letterbox in Vegas is simply to drop your full screen footage into a widescreen project.

However, you picture suggests you are trying to do the reverse: letterbox 16:9 footage to 4:3. Either way, the method is the same. Let Vegas do the lifting for you.

Originally Posted by Emre Safak

The recommended way to letterbox in Vegas is simply to drop your full screen footage into a widescreen project.

All that does is pillarboxes it.

However, you picture suggests you are trying to do the reverse: letterbox 16:9 footage to 4:3. Either way, the method is the same. Let Vegas do the lifting for you.

No, I'm doing the opposite - letterboxing 4:3 to 16:9...

Originally Posted by Cole McDonald

isn't there a widescreen matte you can just slap on as a filter in Vegas?

I haven't seen one...

[Emre Safak]

How do you letterbox 4:3 into 16:9? 16:9 is wider than 4:3, so the empty spaces are the sides.

Are you trying to pan and scan? If so, all you need is the Event Crop tool (middle icon at the right of the clip).

Originally Posted by Emre Safak

How do you letterbox 4:3 into 16:9? 16:9 is wider than 4:3, so the empty spaces are the sides.

Are you trying to pan and scan? If so, all you need is the Event Crop tool (middle icon at the right of the clip).

...to letterbox a 4:3 video into 16:9, you just add black bands at the top and bottom, cropping it...

Oh wait, it's alright. I just realised. If I'm doing a 16:9 project, and I have 4:3 footage, all I need to do is zoom into the 4:3 footage so that it fills the 16:9 frame and then it's 16:9.. heh

Cheers

[Greg Boston]

Originally Posted by Jonny Brady

Oh wait, it's alright. I just realised. If I'm doing a 16:9 project, and I have 4:3 footage, all I need to do is zoom into the 4:3 footage so that it fills the 16:9 frame and then it's 16:9.. heh

Cheers

Yeah, you can do that, but you'll be doing a digital enlargement and that tends to look less than pretty.

As was stated, if you want to take 4:3 material and convert it to 16:9 (which is a ratio of 1.78:1), the horizontal pixel count has to be 1.78 times more than the vertical pixel count. Cropping the top and bottom of your 4:3 is the best bet. You can also keyframe the cropping to simulate a slight tilt up or down to adjust framing where necessary.

-gb-

Originally Posted by Greg Boston

Yeah, you can do that, but you'll be doing a digital enlargement and that tends to look less than pretty.

As was stated, if you want to take 4:3 material and convert it to 16:9 (which is a ratio of 1.78:1), the horizontal pixel count has to be 1.78 times more than the vertical pixel count. Cropping the top and bottom of your 4:3 is the best bet. You can also keyframe the cropping to simulate a slight tilt up or down to adjust framing where necessary.

-gb-

Yeah that was what I was trying to do, but I just couldn't figure out why the mask I had created, why its letterbox was so shallow.

The digital enlargement I don't mind, because it's better than rendering a mainly widescreen project as 4:3 just because there's some 4:3 footage in it, letterboxed; 'cause if I were to output letterboxed 4:3 back to my camcorder, it would essentially be windowboxed. If you get me. So I'd rather have the digital enlargement, it's still fine... even if this particular camcorder had been set to 16:9, it would still look the same, as the widescreen on this particular camcorder is not true wide.

[Louis Lavin]

It is very easy to get a letterbox look in vegas... Go to your media generator and get a solid white color and put it in a video track above your video. Make sure the solid white goes from the beinging of your video all the way to the end. Next go to pan/crop and from the drop down menu choose 16:9. Last go to composite mode on the left side and choose multiply mask. Once you do this you will get letterbox.