Ok I'll try to explain my situation as best as possible. This morning I had my first video shoot for an exercise video. I'm working with a Panasonic DVC30 and vegas 6.0. Well, I filmed todays footage with the setting on fake 16:9 (letterbox). Everything turned out great, however I captured the video and started to play with the software and rendered a small portion of the video, well after It rendered the wide screen (fake 16:9) effect was looking a little distorted, and It almost seemed like everything was stretched In the end .avi rendered file. I tried re-rendering under the widescreen NTSC template but there is no noticable difference.

Let me try to clear that up a bit - When I view previews of the letterbox 16:9 shots they look perfect in the preview window on vegas, but after being rendered and viewed in windows media player, they no longer appear wide.

Now, this was only one day of shoots, should I go back and reshoot everything in 4:3? or is there a way to modify my footage I shot today back to 4:3??

Also, when I burn this to dvd will it re-expand the widescreen effect?

Our next shoot is this wednesday and I basically just need to know what aspect ratio I need to shoot at. I love the look of the widescreen but after being rendered the video just looks semi-distorted. I researched this as much as I could before I posted but couldn't find an exact answer

Thanks a lot guys. Sorry for the double post, I posted this in the vegas subforum as well for additional feedback, hope that is in compliance with board rules.

This kind of thing is typically a Windows Media Player issue.

If the footage is letterboxed and you didn't crop out the black bars, then export as 4:3. If you DID crop out the black bars, you can export as 16:9.

Which did you do?

Thanks for the reply. I didn't crop out the black bars and I exported in both 4:3 and 16:9. They both appeared a little distorted

Don't export as 16:9, and don't work in a widescreen project. The footage you have is 4:3, not 16:9.

WMP seems to have a subroutine which identifies the black bars and interprets the footage as anamorphic, so it displays it at the incorrect aspect ratio. It's kind of hit or miss; sometimes it does it; sometimes it doesn't.

If you export as 4:3 and make a 4:3 DVD, it will be fine on the TV. It won't be able to be displayed as anamorphic on a widescreen TV, but most players or TVs these days allow for zooming in.

Sorry for the double post... hope that is in compliance with board rules.Well no, it ain't in compliance... guess I'll have to dust off our "no crossposting" announcement again.

Don't export as 16:9, and don't work in a widescreen project. The footage you have is 4:3, not 16:9.

WMP seems to have a subroutine which identifies the black bars and interprets the footage as anamorphic, so it displays it at the incorrect aspect ratio. It's kind of hit or miss; sometimes it does it; sometimes it doesn't.

If you export as 4:3 and make a 4:3 DVD, it will be fine on the TV. It won't be able to be displayed as anamorphic on a widescreen TV, but most players or TVs these days allow for zooming in.

thanks a ton for your help buddy I appreciate it. You partially solved my problem. Now when It renders It appears as the correct aspect ratio in windows media player, but It looks like the video has horizonal lines when action occurs. Any ideas as to what that could be? Thanks for your time.

bump^ any ideas about the now occuring lines?

If you shot normal video (60i), that's interlacing. It's normal. It shows on progressive displays like computer screens, but it doesn't show on standard TVs.

Richard,
Do yourself a favor and don't shoot in Cinema mode (4:3 with black bars). Use the widescreen (squeeze) mode and your editing will be much easier. You will have better PQ in widescreen mode than if you shoot Cinema and crop out the black bars.

Thanks for your help guys.

Shooting full-frame and then cropping to 16:9 in post, using Vegas, gives you identical quality to shooting squeeze, and also gives you the option of reframing your shot in post, adding a camera tilt which wasn't in the original, etc.. You're fine either way, but at the same quality, why not retain the options?