Converting 16:9 to 4:3 without letterboxing
 

Hey all,
We have a project that needs to be converted from 16:9 to 4:3 for a news broadcast. When we bring in the16:9 AVI's in Vegas, it shows up as a letterboxed image even in a 4:3 project. When we try and stretch the 16:9 to the 4:3, the letterbox stays there and only zooms the image. It does this with jpegs we bring in too....

We're shooting in 16:9 HDV, but the final project will be in 4:3 full screen SD.

How can we change it so that we can stretch the letterboxed image and it does not keep the letterbox, so we can fill the full 4:3 frame? We know that it will cut off the sides, which is totally fine, but we just need to get it to 4:3.

Thanks in advance... we really need to figure out something by tonight...

Kit

You want to "pan and scan". Open the project properties (fourth icon from the left) and selet the NTSC DV template (not widescreen). Drop your clips on the track, then right click on the ones that need to be cropped and select "Event Pan/Crop". Use the "4:3 SDTV AR" template and you should be good to go.

Select any clip in the timeline.

Click on "Event Pan/Crop" (the little cropping symbol near the right edge of the event).

Select the "4:3 Standard TV aspect ratio" preset.

Close Event Pan/Crop, copy the clip, select all other clips on the timeline, right click on one and pull down to "paste attributes".

Done.

You may also modify individual clips by zooming in and/or reframing, possibly with keyframes in pan/crop.

Worked beautifully. Thanks guys. I wasn't aware of the template to change that in the pan/crop settings. We never had to do this before...

Thanks again!
Kit