Hi DVinfo! First of all I'd like to say this is a great website just jam-packed with info and great people! And I'm glad to be a part of it.

Now to my question.

I'm having some trouble in Sony Vegas with my XL2 footage that I import. In the preview window it is scrunched to fit more of a 4:3 aspect even though the project properties are set to NTSC widescreen. I tried every Aspect Ratio setting they had and still did not achieve my true 16:9 that my footage contains.

Now, what I am going for is 16:9 on my final render, meaning the black bars on top and bottom along with the sharp quality.

So really my main question is, what is the proper way to edit 16:9 footage in Vegas and/or the proper way to capture your footage?

Currently capturing with Pinnacle Studio 9, since Vegas' capture capabilities are somewhat lacking.

Any help at all would be GREATLY appreciated!

EDIT: PROBLEM SOLVED. For those looking for an answer to the above question...
You need to go to the CLIP PROPERTIES while it's on the time line and set THAT footage to Widescreen; as well as the timeline properties to widescreen. Thanks to Matt Newcomb for pointing this out for me!!

-C. Collins

Welcome to DVinfo Chris. I've moved your question to our PC editing forum since it really isn't XL2 specific. The XL2 shoots standard anamorphic widescreen DV just like many other cameras.

I can't answer with specifics since I'm on the Mac, but your settings may very well be correct. There is no difference in the data format of 16:9 and 4:3 DV material, it's all 720x480. Your monitor needs to "know" that the video is in the widescreen format and it stretches the image into the correct proportion. There's a flag imbedded in the data stream which can tell *some* software and hardware to do this.

I'm sure someone will chime in with some advice for the software you're using.

I use Vegas also, I am not sure exactly what you are trying to say. First, do you have an external monitor you are using? If you are just using the video window in Vegas on your main monitor, it will only show what ever size the window is regardless of your settings. You have to grab the edge of the video window and hold down your left mouse button and drag it to the size you want it. Regardless of the size of that screen, it will not affect how it is rendered and burned to DVD. If you want a 16:9 and you filmed in 16:9, just click on project properties and make sure 16:9 or widescreen is selected. Save that, and when you click render, if using DVD architect, click one of the MPEG2 presets for DVD ARCHITECT widescreen. or widescreen 24P depending on how you shot it. It will automatically render in widescreen and when you burn your DVD in Architect, make sure project properties there say widescreen..you can check it under the "optimize" button as you prepare to burn the DVD. I hope this helps. J

Here, I am about to post pictures to better explain my problem.

Wow, I am really getting frustrated.