I've built a HD 1080i video project and I'm nesting a photo montage veg into the video project veg. The size of my jpg photos are 3648 x 2736. The entire project will be delivered on a SD DVD for widescreen display and also to tape in HDV.

I've done this before several times but I've never been sure if I'm doing it correctly or optimally.Should the photo montage project properties be set to 1080i? If I set the project properties to 1080i, should I still crop the photos to 16:9?

I know I should downsize the photos and convert them to PNGs, but so far on my new PC and Vegas 8.1 I'm not having any problem rendering the jpg images at their full size.

Thanks,
Dave

Anybody? Does my question make sense?

I forgot to mention I also have the option of using Ultimate-S to crop the photos to match the project aspect ratio.

Dave

I would set the projects to HD to match the print to tape.

Should the photo montage project properties be set to 1080i?

I don't see why. Your photos are static, which makes them progressive. It is easy for Vegas (or any other software) to convert progressive footage to interlaced, while moving in the opposite direction is very difficult and may even be impossible.

If I set the project properties to 1080i, should I still crop the photos to 16:9?

Well, you should not convert it to 1080i, but even if you do, if you want the photos to fill the screen and your target screen is 16:9, then by all means crop them to 16:9. But that really needs to be an artistic decision, not a technical one.

I know I should downsize the photos and convert them to PNGs

Says who? If the originals came as PNG, then you do not want to convert them to JPEG because you would lose some information (since JPEG is lossy and PNG is not). But if the originals came as JPEG, converting them to PNG will gain you nothing except a larger file size. Whatever information was lost when the JPEGs were created is lost forever and will not be recovered by converting them to PNG.

Now if you decide to downsize them, then and only then does it make sense to save them as PNG because downsizing loses some information and saving them to JPEG after that would lose even more.

However, I would not downsize them unless Vegas is doing a poor job downsizing them and you have some other software that does it better.

Personally, I use a different approach. I shoot all my photos on film and scan them myself with a professional scanner. I scan them to whatever size I need, often to several different sizes/resolutions. That way I get the best scan possible for each different size. But if your photos are digital from scratch and, as you say, Vegas is giving you good results, then keep them the way they are.

Thanks Ed, Adam,

What I'm doing currently with the photo montage veg is setting the properties to 1080i. The I use Ultimate-S to crop the images to 1080.

Adam, as for setting the properties to progressive, I don't understand how that would work since this project is nested into a 1080i video project.

Dave

David, if it works for you, then keep it that way. You can certainly import 1080p files into a 1080i project, so you do not have to prepare it in I but can prepare it in P. But if you are already doing it in I and it works, it is good.