OK, so I'm trying to come up with a solution to shoot an upcoming project in.

I am testing some CF25 footage. All my projects end up with a 2.35:1 cinemascope ratio.

As I am aquiring the CF25 footage with the Z1 in vegas, it looks stretched. Is it just that my eyes are trained differently and Europeans are cultured to watch tv in this manner?

What is it? Why does everything (cars, people, signs, etc...) seem long and tall in Vegas?

Cameras mode was : CF25 in HDV mode, then downcoverted to computer as Squeezed, so the pixels end up 1.457.

Project properties are : PAL DV Widescreen (720x576, 25.000 fps), but I change the Field Order to "None (progressive scan)" because thats what the original footage downconverted as.

Things don't look right. Almost looks like a Square Box, rather then Widescreen footage that I'm used to.

I've never done this EBU, PAL, 720x576, 50i, 24fps thing before so don't laugh at me. *smile*

- Shannon W. Rawls

Look for an option for "simulate device aspect ratio".

You're using 16:9 footage in PAL, which would mean a pixel aspect ratio of something like 1.42:1. But you're viewing it on a computer monitor, which has a default pixel aspect ratio of 1.00. So what you're seeing is horizontally compressed by something like 33%.

If you tell Vegas to simulate the device's aspect ratio, it will display a wide-screen version, automatically compensating for the pixel aspect ratio. Your Vegas display will not be pixel-for-pixel accurate, but the shape of the video will match what you're expecting.

Shannon -- I've moved this to our HDV Editing forum; Spot is our resident Vegas HDV expert, so hopefully he'll have some input for ya. ;-)

Barry, You're the man!! That did the trick. I right-clicked on the video preview monitor and low and behold, it wasn't selected. When I selected, it became beautiful! *smile* thanks.

Chris, being an owner of a popular web forum myself, I should have known better. Sorry. SOmetimes I get excited and just be typing away, and post as soon as I become "Near" the area I should be. I'll watch my steps next time.

All is well.

- Shannon W. Rawls

Barry beat me to the punch. :-)
Simulate Aspect will mess you up if you're not thinking of it.