DVX/Vegas "widescreen" aspect

[KuriousJorj]

This was covered somewhere, but can't find it (server crash several months ago?)

Anyhow, is there a way to keep the "1.5" ratio (of the preview window in Vegas,) instead of it being clipped on the sides by the 4:3 tv standard?

If one could keep the true 720 X 480, it would almost look like a "pseudo-widescreen," almost like a loose 16:9.

Of course, when I watch one of my DVD's on the TV, much is cut off on the left and right...surely there is a way to counter this?

THANKS!!!

BJ

ps. obviously don't have the anamorphic, and don't want to cut out any of the image to achieve letterbox; this is for fests, and I need all the resolution I can get!!!

[Mike_Donis]

Why don't you just get them to project it in 4:3?

[KuriousJorj]

Yes, if they will, then I'm good. Of course, some won't.

Also, some require the 'pillarboxes,' which I've never used, but I assume it's essentially the same thing; the black bars go where the "widescreen sides" would be, and the image itself is still 720 X 480. (would this finally keep all 720 X 480, with the black pillar bars to the outsides?)

So unsure over so simple a thing!

[Barry_Green]

I'm not sure you understand how those pixels work. Nothing's getting chopped off by a 4:3 TV. The thing that's happening is that the pixels are NOT SQUARE. If the pixels were square, you'd have a 1.5:1 aspect ratio, but the pixels are *not* square, they're vertical rectangles, and when you arrange them in a 720x480 grid, you get a 4:3 aspect ratio.

TV's can chop off areas on the edge of the frame, but all TV's do that and that's why such a concept as the "TV Safe" area exists. But display it on an LCD monitor or something and you'll see that all the image is there.

If you don't use the anamorphic, and you want all the resolution you can get, and you don't want to letterbox, then you only have one choice: 4:3. That uses all the pixels on the CCD, nothing gets cut off, nothing gets resized, it's the highest-resolution cleanest signal you can get from the camera.

[David Jimerson]

Yes. You'll notice that at 720x480 in Vegas, your images look stretched vertically.

[KuriousJorj]

Thanks BG...

However, Sundance (not that I'll get accepted...won't know til Dec) requires either letterbox or pillarboxed for 4:3, I believe. (once you're accepted, you send in either film --35 or 16, OR on a video format, can't remember which; BetaCam or something?).

Anyhow, if they require pillarbox or letterbox (for material originally 4:3), I assume, as I wrote above, that pillarbox also contains the entire image...just with black bars on each side to make it the full 16:9? (not at home now, or I'd just do it and see...)


So if this is the case... I'd assume pillarbox is how I'd want to go?
???

[David Jimerson]

That's how it will appear. If you want to show the entire 4:3 picture, then yes, pillarboxing is the way you want to go.