A bit confused about Vegas HD to SD workflow
 

Hi, I'm new to HD, just got an XLH1a a few weeks ago. I just came back from a corporate gig shot in HDV 60i and I want to find the best way to works with the footage.

The end result will be a widescreen SD DVD.

So I have two solutions, I want to find the best one for me.

First I can downconvert in camera. I tested it and I think that the result is great. Working with DV footage is familiar and the quality is on par with what I am used to with the XL2.

But, I can capture HDV, edit HDV and downconvert at the end. From what I have read, the images will be sharper and I will have the freedom to crop without any loss in quality. seems great.

I just did some tests with this workflow and found that there is a problem with the aspect ratio of me outputed SD files. I get some black bars each sides. (see attached pic)

What I have done is this: I put the HDV files on the timeline in an HDV60i project. Then I rendered a section using mpeg2 DVDA widescreen template.

What can I do to prevent this to happens?

Maybe you set the project properties to 1920x1080? The footage from the Canon HDV cams are 1440x1080.

No, I am using this template: HDV 1080-60i (1440x1080; 29,970 fps)

the attached image is 873x480... is this some variant of 864x486? ... your image size numbers seem a bit off (as the pillars suggest).

~

i'd suggest changing the Project Properties in your Vegas project to "NTSC DV Widescreen" since that's your target and work from there.

l8r
rob

First of all, remember that those "bars" are in the safe area that typically is not seen on a TV anyway. If you really want to get rid of them, put the HD footage on an SD timeline and then set the Pan/Crop to "Match Output Aspect" and it should zoom in slightly. During rendering you could also check the "stretch to fill frame" option.

873x480 is 720x480 widescreen with the pixels changed to square pixels.

Edward, so you are telling me that it is normal to see those bars? I though about just using the pan and crop tool to get rid of them but was thinking I was doing something wrong.

Wouldn't WS be 853, not 873? (480/9x16=853.3)

unsurely
rob

Jean, those bars can be normal. Some options were given to get rid of them if you really want. However, if you're making SD DVDs, it will probably never be seen as small as they are.

Rob, I'm just going by what the preview screen shows. If you look in the project properties, the widescreen PAR is 1.2121 so we can then do the math. 720*1.2121 = 872.7.

Edward,

Yes, I definitely want to get rid of them. They are not so small in my opinion. I know they are outside of the safe area but the DVD will most likelly be presented lot of times with a laptop and projector.

When I capture the donwconverted SD footage, the black bars aren't presents. I would like to end up that way. Full widescreen SD footage, no black bars.

Then use one of the options provided.

Pan/Crop Match Aspect
Pan/Crop slightly stretch
Track Motion slightly zoom in
Render "stretch to fill frame"
etc...

Test the various options out and see what you like best.

ah! thx. i'm always mixing up WS with 16:9 -rob

How about adding a border?

I've never ever heard of 874x480 being what's translated to a 16x9 aspect ratio from 720x480. It's usually either 853 or 854 depending on where you look :)

I always expected the extra pixels make up the black bars on the side. Take that pic into PShop or whatever, crop the pic to get rid of the black... you end up with 854x480. So I think the original poster might want to check out his settings somewhere.