Hi Folks.

Well I am a novice with Premiere CS4 and Media Encoder CS4.

I use YouTube and well they now have the widescreen HD option.
In Media encoder I am rendering my videos to Windows AVI using a setting of 29fps , 1280 x 720 for size and 16:9 widescreen.

My videos just keep showing up as a box. This is driving me insane. I check the exact settings that YouTube advises and well it was the 1280 x 720.

Where am I going wrong?.
I want the best footage possible but just cant get it. It seems my videos render as 720 x 480.

I need help.

I don't really know much about uploading to YouTube. Wonder if the 29fps is getting you? Maybe try 30fps (ie 29.97)? Perhaps so try creating a different file format such as a Flash or MPEG file?

Can you provide more detail.....when you say "as a box" do you mean Youtube screens them as a blank rectangle (green or whatever)? If so, does the encoded file play OK on you computer before you upload it? What kind of "Windows avi" are you rendering to?

Matt: I have been uploading using setting you indicate, except I render in .mp4. I use Vegas. This one was done that way:

YouTube - The Dead Of Winter (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xy6NXlA6T18)

They may have some process for .avi files that does what happens in the re encode process. Try one of the newer codecs or even .wmv encoding to see if results come out different.

I tried the MPEG4 and still the same.

Here is one video which was recorded with Camstasia Studio to capture my computer screen.

YouTube - First computer animation (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJunjn04RYQ)

It is not widescreen but fills from top to bottom.

However If we watch my MPEG4 video about the tornado sirens that I put up for family to watch. No work done to footage. It comes out as a small box in the center of the frame.
Even though I had rendered in Media Encoder as 1280 x 720 with 16:9.

YouTube - Tornado siren test (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gaha6OQimnA&feature=channel_page)

I have uploaded 2 more videos to YouTube but with different settings so I hope to see how those turn out when live.

To the above question.

When I play my videos back in Windows media player, they appear as small box within the frame like my tornado sire test.

I think I understand where you are going wrong, but post a screenshot here of your render settings.

Here are 3 screen shots of exporting in Premiere CS4

I notice the second screenshot says "NTSC DV High Quality" in the Comments section; did you start with an NTSC preset and adjust the settings for 720? Some of them are incorrect, namely the Field Order (I don't know Premiere's specific terminology, but there should be an option that says either None or Progressive) and the Pixel Aspect Ratio. The display aspect ratio of your image may be 16:9, but its pixel aspect ratio should be set to Square Pixels.

You may be able to easily get what you want by choosing a different Preset in the Export Settings dialog; is there some sort of 720 HD option? The Premiere CS4 PDF manual from Adobe's website doesn't seem to offer a list of what's available.

I had a feeling it was the non-square pixels that was causing an issue. Whenever I work in HD I ALWAYS work in square pixels to remove these kinds of problems.

It looks to me like you are starting with SD footage (DV?) in an HD project. Hence the black area surrounding the footage.

If so, either start with an SD project (you can still render to HD if you wish), or start with an HD project and stretch your footage to fill the screen area.

>I had a feeling it was the non-square pixels that was causing an issue.

While that may need fixing too, non-square pixels would not explain such a wide margin of black on all 4 sides...

Right, that's the SD in HD project deal. Plenty here to fix... :)

I got a test footage rendering right now with the following settings and the picture is now filling the top to bottom portion of the screen but not all the way across on the sides.

Here is my settings :

Started project as DV NTSC Widescreen

Exported as : Format Windows AVI
Preset ; Custom

Video Codec ; Microsoft video 1
Frame size ; 1280 x 720
Frame rate : 29.97
Field type ; Progressive
Aspect ; Square pixels (1.0)

Render at 16 bits

I am starting with SD footage.

Ok video just loaded and it is larger but not widescreen at all. As you can view in my screen shot here, The video is touching from top to bottom in the Premiere preview window on the left.

Matthew, you can't put 4:3 video into 16:9 space and have it fill. There are only 2 ways to do it

1. Distort the video
2. Zoom in so that the sides fill in and lose the top and bottom.

You have to choose. It's no different than getting a 16:9 TV and watching an SD DVD or TV program on it.

I'm sure I am missing something here, but I'm having trouble understanding why you would do a widescreen project for SD footage that appears to be 4:3, or why you would want to export SD to HD specs. Seems to me there's no advantage to either and that this behavior is to be completely expected.

But I'm probably missing something.

EDIT: Oops, crossed with Ford's post. He's right and said it better than I.

I am a complete novice with this. I have made basic home DVD's using Vegas Pro 8 which came out great and the footage was recorded as 16:9 when recording to Mini DVD with my camcorder. I took this footage with an SD card which only allows 4:3. I did not know that you cant expand 4:3 into 16:9. So my mistake.

I have so much to learn. I have had Adobe suite for about a week now and well I hope to laugh at my mistakes now in the future.

Check out my blog post on this:

YOUTUBE WIDESCREEN IS FUNNY Director Paul Del Vecchio’s Homepage (http://pauldv.com/2008/12/17/youtube-widescreen-is-funny/)

Hope that helps!

Different issue ... (he was using a 1:1 PAR).

I managed to get my video to come out correctly. I am still so very new to this and learning as much as I can. You guys sure do help big time and I really thank you all for the help I have received.