How do I get rid of the black bars on the top and bottom
 

It's HD being rendered out as mpg2 1440 x1080. But I have those black bars on the top and bottom and I can't remember how to get rid of those. Is it just a check box or something or do I need to crop it, render differently?

Hi Jason

If your project is HD 1440x1080 then the rendered out video should fill the screen as it's 16:9 format. It might be an idea to check your project properties and let Vegas decide by clicking the folder in the top right corner and selecting one of the video files. Vegas will then set the project correctly!!

Chris

Hi Jason

Thanks for emailing me the screenshot. What has happened here is that whoever made the video has actually created the black bars so they can add their title overlays. You might like to try to use the pan crop tool in Vegas and zoom in to exclude the bars. The video looks like it's a 4:3 aspect video and they have simply added graphics to make the vide appear like it's a widescreen but with the advantage that you can drop text onto the black bars!!

If you don't want them just crop them out!!

Chris

Well I shot it all. 1080 60i. I did add the upper and lower bars but when I got preview there are 2 extra bars at the top and bottom. So, for a second I thought ok I can get rid of my black bars and put the text on those other bars but it wouldn't. So, that is where I can't figure it out. I am lost. It looks fine on here but when you preview out it is not what you get.

Can't I just play around and extend the video so the bars eventually disappear?

Ok I muted my black bars. I did some messing around with the video properties and I was able to get the video to have just a very small black bar on the top and bottom. It is noticeable but a lot better. Now if I wanted to keep it that way it does not work. When I render about 9 seconds of it. Pull it over to architect it has the bars back. So, I am guessing it is in rendering somewhere.

If you right click an event on the timeline, choose properties and click the media tab... maybe changing the pixel aspect ratio will fix your problem. This has worked for me in the past.

Or like Chris stated, use the pan crop, but lock the x axis, so the focus stretches vertically.

Not sure if that helps or not.

Hi Jason

When you crop also the current interlacing lines are also cropped so you will get horrific interlacing lines on your video.
Whenever you pan, crop or zoom in Vegas you need to make sure that you do so on de-interlaced footage. Either de-interlace it first with a 3rd party program or, in the Vegas property window set the "de-interlace" option to "interpolate" .... If you are rendering to DVD then the current render settings will be fine but if you want to view the video on your computer or online then also use the custom button on the render window and under the video tab, change the field order to progressive !!!

Chris

Hi Jason. In the first post you mentioned that it is HD being rendered out as mpg2 1440x1080. If the footage has already been rendered, is it possible that the black bars are already embedded in the video? If so, the best thing to do is go back to the original footage and see what is causing the black bars.

On the other hand, if it is HDV footage at 1440x1080 in a HDV project, there should not be any black bars at all. Check that the pixel aspect ratio for the footage and project are both 1.333.

Richard