Hello,
In V8,I set the project property to HDV 1080-60i and have captured hd and dv footage. After editing, I want to encode footage for two dvd. One for hdtv and the other for sdtv. What format do I render each in? Do I need to change the project properties for sdtv render?

BTW, the hd footage was shoot with Sony Z5u and the sd with Sony vx2100. Please help. I want to make sure I do this right. Any suggestions for this project will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

DVDs are always SD, so you can't create an HD DVD (except if you meant, an AVCHD disk). Basically, best practice calls to always use the right project properties (in this case, use HDV since you seem to have quite a lot of HDV footage), and then decide how to export (in SD or in HD) at the very end. Don't change the project properties no matter how you decide to export.

You mentioned not changing the project properties... But wouldn't you want to effectively change them, say by taking the completed HDV project and nesting it in an empty widescreen DV project? That way you can easily "match output aspect" on the nested project in one step to correct the difference between the true 16:9 of HDV and the not quite 16:9 of widescreen DV. Otherwise, you would need to do a "stretch to fit" on the render to prevent pillar boxing, and effectively fatten everything in your video slightly.

Hi Albert

Also remember that HDV and SD footage have opposite fields so you will have to de-interlace your footage before rendering as the resultant SD files which you will render to will be Lower Field first not Upper like in the HDV footage.

To make life a LOT easier, I transcode HD footage to DV-AVI before editing so I don't have any file dimension or field issues!!

Chris

Forget what I suggested about nesting the HD project in an SD project to allow you to match the aspect ratio for the SD render. Thanks to the new feature in Vegas Pro 9 in project properties, "Adjust source media to better match project or render settings" will accomplish the same thing by checking that box and changing your project properties to the SD format you want, DV Widescreen.

More importantly, I've found that nesting veg files can result in progressive output when you want interlaced, which isn't a good thing.