safe area off, but video still cuts off on edge

[Ken Olson]

I used Ultimate S MotoFoto to create a montage. I have the "Action Safe Area" and "Title Safe Area" in Options, Preferences, Video both set to "0". The "Maintain Aspect Ratio" for the background if off, but it is checked for the event pics.

My background video loop fills up the screen in 16:9, but as the pics moved toward the left or right edge they get cut off where the action safe area would normally be (or 4:3 I guess), rather then continue until the edge of the screen like the background video loop does.

I've also tried various wide screen Project Settings with no luck.

Thanks,

Ken

[Mike Kujbida]

I don't use MotoFoto but whenever I've seen that particular cut-off problem, it's because I forgot to open Pan/Crop on the event, right-click and select "Match Output Aspect".
I would expect that MotoFoto would have that as a global option but you'd have to read the manual to confirm my thinking.

[Edward Troxel]

I agree with Mike. And it's definitely NOT related to the title and action safe areas (and you should set those back to the original values) as those values are simply used to draw the safe area outlines on the preview screen when you turn that option on.

[Ken Olson]

Any suggestions as to what Project Properties Template to use in general for widescreen video? I've read this tutorial, and it appears that I want to use his last option.
Convert 4:3 media to widescreen for SD or HD

Thanks

[Mike Kujbida]

If that's what your source video is, then that's the template to use.
Let us know if it's something other than that.

[Ken Olson]

Streams Video: 00:00:17.960, 25.000 fps, 720x576x24, Photo - JPEG

Streams Still: 4288x2848x24, JPEG

[Mike Kujbida]

Since your source video is only 720x576 (SD), the HDV template is not the one to use.
Instead, I'd use the "DVD Architect PAL Widescreen video stream" template.
The other thing I recommend is to decrease the size of your stills.
Unless you're doing really deep zooms, the usual suggestion is no more 2X your project size which, in this case is 1440 X 1152.
Use an app like IrfanView (it's free) for batch resizing and batch conversion to PNG format as Vegas likes that particular format.

[Edward Troxel]

I would just use the PAL DV Widescreen option in your case. After you add the images, make sure you open Pan/Crop and do a "Match Output Aspect".

[Ken Olson]

Since I'm in the U.S. I just tried:

Template: NTSC DV (720x480, 29.970 fps)
Pixel Aspect Ratio: 0.9091 (NTSC DV)

Thanks for the advice about reducing the file size although I assume that they aren't interfering with my final results?

Why is it the the Vegas preview window looks different then the final render (see images)? How do you get them to be the same? If the preview window doesn't represent the render, then what's the point to having a preview window?

If possible I'd like the entire screen filled, I don't care if the background is stretched, but I don't want to change the aspect ratio of the images, and still have the images travel to the outer edge of the screen.

Thank you,

Ken

[Edward Troxel]

For the File - Properties - you picked NTSC DV but you rendered to NTSC DV Widescreen.

Set the File - Properties to NTSC DV Widescreen instead.

I mentioned PAL because the clip properties you listed were 25 fps.

[Ken Olson]

I finally contacted Vasst direct and John Rofrano responded as follows:

"It looks like you may have had your project set to 4:3 when you used MotoFoto and then you changed the project to 16:9. This will produce the results you are seeing. It is important to set your project properties before you use MotoFoto and don’t change them afterwards. To correct this, simply run MotoFoto again with the correct project properties that you want to use for your final video."

I had another issue regarding my rendering setting which is best explained by John again:
"Your problem is that your project is set to DV Widescreen but you are rendering HD 720p. Start again and set your project to match your output. If you are delivering 720p then your project should be 1280x720-30p. Otherwise you will get all sorts of surprises like this. You will only see what you get if your project properties match your render properties."

BTW, the "maintain aspect ratio" for the background video loop and the pics is enabled.

Thank you again everyone for your tips and diligent efforts to help me. Now all I need to do is buy Montage Magic from Ed to tweak my pan/zoom and I'm ready to go!

Here are my final settings that worked: