Simulating 16:9 on 4:3 external monitor
 

Hi all,

After Effects does a pretty good job of displaying my output via firewire/old camcorder to an old (but still working well) JVC TM1500PS. The monitor is 4:3 only but AE does a decent conversion to simulate 16:9 by letterboxing and resizing the image appropriately.

Seems like Vegas can't do the same . . . unless I'm missing something?

Anyone know better?

Thanks in advance,

Ian . . .

Vegas does, when it recompresses frames.

If you have footage which is widescreen, and Vegas plays it out to the TV without recompressing frames (if you have no effects or crops or anything else on the clip), then it sends it through firewire exactly as-is, as though it's playing directly from tape.

Thanks David.

My issue is that the monitor is ONLY capable of displaying 4:3 (it's very old!).

So, yes, Vegas is putting out exactly as-is (ie widescreen footage) but the monitor is distorting it to fill a 4:3 monitor.

What I was hoping for is a way for Vegas to simulate 16:9 output by letterboxing the display and compensating for the vertical stretching.

It works quite elegantly in After Effects so it presumably is something that either can be done in Vegas (but I haven't worked out how) or could be done in a future release.

Ian . . .

Hi,

Assuming you are mainly nowadays doing HDV or 16:9 material as I am - why not do as I did - modify your monitor??!! No need for any software conversions... ;)

Every monitor has (at least an internal) vertical scan setting that you could adjust so that the monitor picture is squeezed vertically to match the pixel aspect ratio´, leaving black areas top and on the bottom. This adjustment also slightly increases the brigtness (more electrons hit the same phosfor area) - but is normally just a welcome side effet on an old monitor...

It should not be hard to find either a serivce manual or a skilled friend to help with the adjustment...

Christian

Hmmm . . . interesting idea! I actually do know an (ex) TV engineer. I'm very tempted, although I do have one important client who requires 4:3 format for their projects. Having said that, the reason they want 4:3 is because the videos are to be streamed from their website in a custom built Flash player that looks like a handheld barcode scanner (and is 4:3). So if they're to be viewed on a PC monitor, I don't really need to be editing them on the TV monitor . . . sorry, thinking out loud!

I may just go for it. Thanks Christian!

Ian . . .

Hi Ian,

If your (ex?) TV engineer friend is a skilled one he can easily provide you with an additional toggle switch. Then you could select the monitor to either show normal 4:3 or 16:9. That's what I have done :) This gave my monitor as "second life"...

Christian

This gets better! I'll speak to him - he said he'd do it for a decent Sunday lunch for him and his family (whgich I was about to invite him to anyway!).

The 'ex' bit means that he now runs a pub in London and isn't a working TV engineer any more.

Thanks again!

Hi,

You just prooved that there is not such a thing than a "free lunch" :)

Hope that what he regrets as "familiy" does not extend to uncles and nephews... ;)

Best regards,

Christian

You can watch widescreen footage in a proper 4:3 letterboxed preview via firewire, it's possible with Vegas 7. Checkout the Preview Device options and set the 'conform output to the following format' to PAL or NTSC DV (not widescreen). That's what I do and the letterboxing is working.

How about that?! It works fine. Thanks Peter!

Somewhat confusing though - not sure I fully understand what "if the project is invalid for DV output conform to the following" means, or why setting to PAL DV (ie not widescreen) should work.

Thanks again, Peter. Netherlands, dix points!

Thanks Peter .... You solved a problem for me .... works great!

-Dan