16x9 on a 4x3 external monitor - David? Barry?

J

Jkim

Member
I am working on a project I filmed in 24pa using squeeze mode on the dvx100a (F6). When I preview on an external 4x3 television through firewire, I want to see the material in 16x9 aspect ratio with the black bars on the top and bottom. I have set the project properties to NTSC DV Widescreen and tried the different options in the event pan/crop menu with no luck. Also, my video device is set to NTSC DV Widescreen in the video preferences page. I have tried on two different 4x3 TVs with no luck, so I ruled out a TV problem. Is there a setting in Vegas 5 or on the DVX100a I'm missing? Any suggestions on achieving the 16x9 preview?

Thanks in advance.
 
Re: 16x9 on a 4x3 external monitor - David? Barry?

Lie to it while looking.

Set the project type to regular 4:3 instead of widescreen, and it will be letterboxed on the TV.

I'd suggest just doing this while color-correcting and such, then resetting it to what it should be immediately afterward so you don't forget. ;)

Dan

(At least this works on my setup. Running the preview out via firewire to a cam, then S-Video from the cam out to the TV.)
 
Re: 16x9 on a 4x3 external monitor - David? Barry?

Dan's right. The thing is, you have widescreen footage in a widescreen project on a NON-widescreen television. So it's definitely going to output it as squeeze/anamorphic, with no letterbox bars, because you've told the system that it should be displaying on a widescreen TV (it's the TV that does the unsqueezing).

So you have to instead tell it you're connected to a 4:3 TV, and the way you do that is to change your project properties to be regular instead of widescreen. Then it'll letterbox everything and you'll see it in the widescreen aspect ratio with letterbox bars on your 4:3 TV. When it's time to make the final, you can then change your project properties back to widescreen and it'll go full-frame again.
 
Re: 16x9 on a 4x3 external monitor - David? Barry?

Thanks for the reply Dan. Did you mean the project properties in the "file" menu? Which setting exactly? NTSC DV (720x480, 29.970 fps)? That didn't work when I tried it and I have the same setup as you. Or are you referring to the Video Device DV out option?

Again, thanks for your help.
 
Re: 16x9 on a 4x3 external monitor - David? Barry?

Dan is correct. When you have the NTSC device settings as widescreen, Vegas thinks you're previewing out on a 16x9 TV.

Some 4:3 TVs (including that great little 14" Toshiba) have a 16:9 mode which will unsqueeze the widescreen feed, and then your settings would be OK. But it's likely you need to change your device settings.
 
Re: 16x9 on a 4x3 external monitor - David? Barry?

Thanks. I got it working. I had to change some event properties (Maintain Aspect Ratio - Yes), (Stretch to Fit - No) But everything is working perfect now. Maybe I'll pick up one of those little Tvs to monitor!!! ;D
 
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