Exporting or Cropping without Letterbox Bars

[Steven Bogda]

A lot of people shooting with their DVXs either shoot 16x9, then export it from their NLE (compressed) and still maintain the wide screen look. I also know people that shoot in 4x3 and frame it as if they were doing it widescreen, then crop off the tops and bottoms of the image where the letterbox bars would be.

How is this done? I always export videos I shot in 16x9 as a 4x3 video with the letterboxing like this: http://www.stevenbogda.com/new/videos/summer_big.mov

How do I go about doing this method, but have a video without the bars in a widescreen form? I have access to Vegas 8, AE CS3 and Quicktime Pro if any of those are capable.

Thanks

 

[Pesie]

Set the Vegas project properties to 16:9 (using the right template).

On the timeline open for each 4:3 clip the Pan/Crop tool and choose the 16:9 preset. You're also able to use the right portion of the original 4:3 footage, by moving the 16:9 grid upwards or downwards, to get the best part of the image. You'll see imediately the effect in the Preview window of Vegas.

Render the timeline to MPEG2 16:9 video if you're going for a dvd, make sure you set the Quality at 'Best' to get the best results, together with 2-Pass rendering and VBR.

 

[David Jimerson]

The render process will be a bit different if you're using DVD Architect to make your DVD, but that's essentially it.