Get True Widescreen From Letterbox DVX/Vegas

[neilslade]

You're editing DVX100 letterbox video (and perhaps other letterbox video as well) in Vegas.

Problem:

1) Using an standard external CRT monitor, you lose the sides of the picture and you're not seeing the entire frame

2) You're letterbox shape output is not really very widescreen- it's half way between letterbox and 4:3

3) The preview window on your computer monitor is squashed



Solution: Change to Square pixel aspect ratio in project properties. This solves several problems at once.

1) It restores the full frame width in your external monitor, and you see EVERYTHING from edge to edge.

2) You get a true widescreen proportioned picture on a standard TV, rather than a safe area missing/cropped picture.

3) You don't have to switch on "simulate device aspect ratio" in Vegas preview window.



There is absolute no loss of picture sharpness or perceptual resolution.

The image remains proportioned exactly correct without any squishing or distortion of the image.

I built a web page with details here: http://www.neilslade.com/widescreen.html



You can still do things with the standard default and recommended .9091 pixel aspect, but I far prefer this treatment of letterbox video.

99% of viewers will see letterbox video on a standard TV, and this is a really nice way to handle it with a better looking final product- and you haven't missed the edges in editing. In the case of viewing on a digital LCD, or computer, narrow black bars on the side may be seen in some cases, but I don't see this as objectionable. In the case of the project ending up in theatrical projection, you simple reset the project back to .9091 and re-render normally. :laugh:

 

[thisiswells]

Because of the controversy surrounding this post, I highly doubt any moderators will respond.

However, I encourage reading of the four pages of rebuttals to Neil's method on DVinfo.net.
Jarred won't mind if you skip out to play (but only for a few minutes, okay!?)

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?p=334013

 

[J.R. Hudson]

This should be fun.

 

[Norm Sanders]

I'm just personally not going to waste time reading the rebuttals, because it's not anything I'm curious to do (change my pixel aspect ratio). When you're comparing to wide scren from "professional movies on TV", I'm assuming you're talking about industry standard movies you buy on DVD. Unless you're comparing it to Cinemascope (2.35:1), I don't know what your problem is ... perhaps it's your TV?

I think the safe guides are there for a reason ... different TV's will show different amounts of the frame/screen ... so there's some variable to play with, and I've SEEN this when watching one of my projects on a friend's TV, various ones in our house, etc. LCD, Plasma, regular old tube TV's, they all vary to a degree.

I'd be more concerned with, trying what you're talking about, having gaps on the sides because the image has been brought in too much on the left & right.

Thanks for the input, and more powere to you on your own projects. I've had no complaints by myself or others. If it ain't broke, don't fix it (or try something else just because someone said to).

 

[David Jimerson]

This was well-covered in Neil Slade's thread on DVInfo.net.

It can be summed up as follows:

Neil doesn't like the overscan which all TVs do and thinks Vegas is to blame. Vegas does nothing differently from any other NLEs and they all work properly. Neil's "solution" does what he wants and that's fine as far as his own material goes, but it's not a "fix" -- it's merely shrinking the video and causing a compression cycle and generation loss.

Because it's so well-covered on DVInfo, and because within that thread Neil was so abusive to anyone who tried to explain what was actually happening, this thread is now closed.