WMV widescreen

[Jeff Harper]

I have a widescreen Vegas project I want to render in WMV widescreen....can't figure it out...don't see a setting...what to do?

[Andrew Kufahl]

Hi Jeff,

What version are you running?

When you go "File | Render..." you should be able to choose wmv as your output. Then, below that there should be a "Template" (or something like that) list which I think has an "NTSC Widescreen" option.

I don't have the software in front of me right now, but that is basically what you need to do.

Andrew

[Jeff Harper]

Appreciate your assistance, Andrew, but under the WMV setting there is no widescreen setting that I can find, and I have been looking on and off for hours....running 8.b

[Andrew Kufahl]

Sorry... I think you are correct (wish I had it in front of me right now). I think I may be thinking of mpg. If you select the template you want to use (basically the bitrate), click the "Custom..." button. Then go to the "Video" tab. In there you can adjust the width/height of the video "720x480" or whatever widescreen size you wish.

Try that and let us know if that works.

Andrew

[Ian Briscoe]

This is what I do - I work in PAL land but have adjusted figures for NTSC I think.

Your frame size is 720x480. Vegas uses a Pixel Aspect Ratio of 1.2121. Multiply 720x1.2121 = 873.

When rendering - select Windows Media Video in "Save As Type" - click "Custom" - click the Video tab - under "Image Size" select "Custom" and enter 873 in Width and 480 in Height.

I think this will give you what you want.

Ian

[Jeff Harper]

Thanks to you both, I will give it a try! And thanks for the numbers, Ian!

[Andrew Kufahl]

Ian,

I could be totally wrong with this, so please correct me if I am... but rather than doing the math to figure out the target size, why wouldn't we just punch in the target size (720x480 for example) and then tell Vegas what to use for pixel aspect ratio? This is the approach I've always used, and is much easier (in my opinion) as there are standard sizes which are easier to remember (720x480, 1280x720, 1920x1080, etc).

On a related note, isn't pixel aspect ratio (PAR) related to the source media? In other words, wouldn't we need to know a little more about Jeff's source video before deciding whether or not 1.2121 was the PAR to apply?

Again, please tell me if I'm wrong saying any of this... I don't have a problem being wrong, and will learn something new if that is the case.

Thanks,
Andrew

[Jeff Harper]

My project properties are NTSC DV widescreen. The size Ian suggested doesn't render correctly, on multitrack sections only the lower part shows up. This is vexing.

[Jeff Harper]

What I'd like is a dimension that is reasonalble for download. I'm going to start uploading widescreen frequently, but I have to figure out these settings. I did do a search but haven't turned up anything yet.

[Ian Briscoe]

Andrew

Y'know I think you're right and I've been over-complicating things. If you use the default WMV template and make sure "Stretch Video to fill Output Frame" is NOT selected then it works perfectly.

And if you want to change the size in the cutom tab you can enter the size you want and then overwrite the Pixel Aspect Ratio to 1.2121. I didn't realise you could do that - cos it's a drop down box i thought I was stuck with 1.0 and 1.333.

I find using Quality VBR at half size at 83% quality works out at just over 4mb per minute (PAL - might be better with NTSC?) - on a basic broadband connection it will start playing within a few seconds.

Jeff - when you say " on multitrack sections only the lower part shows up" can you give a bit more detail on that?

Ian

[Andrew Kufahl]

Here's what I normally do...

I pick a size I think is adequate for my target. So let's say I'm targetting the internet and I don't need a huge size, nor do I want a huge file. I'd start with 512 (width). Widescreen is 16:9, so I'd divide 512 by 16 which results in 32, then take 32 multiplied by 9 which results in 288. Enter 512x288 for width/height.

I'm pretty certain you need to know whether your source media needs a non-1.0 pixel aspect ratio. All I can tell you is that my previous consumer-level camcorder used to need 1.2121 applied to it, but I honestly can't speak to what you should do unless you can divulge a little more about the video you are using (what camera was it shot with, what mode [4:3, 16:9,] etc). But, if you just run a small/short render with 1.0 as your PAR, you should be able to tell right away whether you need to use 1.2121 instead, as your output should look wrong (squished).

Hopefully you can get the PAR squared away. Then, if your output needs to be smaller (whether that be because you need a smaller display size or file size) start decreasing your width/height (or you could even reduce the bitrate if you like the display size, which should make your file size smaller). To reduce the physical size, I look at my previous numbers and reduce the 32 (512 / 16) and take it down to 28 (for example). Then, 28 times 16 is 448, and 28 times 9 is 252... so your new width/height is 448x252. Then test that.

Keep in mind though, that when you enter your height in Vegas, it may be auto-adjusted by Vegas. If it gets auto-adjusted I normally reduce my starting number again (i.e. take 28 down to 27) and try again. The goal (my goal) is to be able to enter a width/height that Vegas doesn't auto-adjust.

Does this help?
Andrew

Ian - I see you just posted, but I didn't read through it yet... so I apologize if any of this is redundant.

[Seth Bloombaum]

Not looking at Vegas at this moment, and on the run...

Vegas does not expose all the controls available from the windows media encoder sdk. If I remember (?), the widescreen flag is one of them. I've found the easy solution to be to do the final encode in the freeware Windows Media Encoder from microsoft, where you get every control.

Its not as easy to use as Vegas, and doesn't give you better or worse quality, but does give you a few more controls.

[Jeff Harper]

Information overload! Wow, thanks everyone. Here's what is happening: I did have stretch to fill frame checked. I unchecked and then used keep original size, and it looks good so far. It is going to be way too large a file at that "original" size, so I will need a smaller size, and I will use the additional information you provided as a guide for that.

Right now I just want to see the finished product, since it is MB heavy I want to at least see it once! (Still rendering).

Windows Media Encoder is good idea but I don't want to render to uncompressed first, this 3 minute file is taking over an hour to render that way.

Oh, and I did change the PAR to 1.2121, which I noticed in the vegas properties.

Thanks for the new numbers, Andrew, I just noticed them, as I didn't read your post properly the first time. They sound ideal.

[Jeff Harper]

BTW, my video was shot with FX7 and PD170 in widescreen mode.

[Andrew Kufahl]

Jeff,

I don't mean to continue giving you information overload, but to save you rendering time... If you click your mouse pointer just above the timeline you can drag to create a "loop section". You can resize that loop section to whatever length you'd like. When you go to render, if you choose "Render Loop Section Only", it does just that. This prevents you from having to render the entire thing just to see if you settings are right/wrong.

Many times I'll create a 5 or 10 second loop section to verify my output. Saves me a ton of time. And, I can then determine [very roughly] whether or not my final file size will exceed my desired target. It isn't completely accurate, as file size depends on what's all in your video, but it does give you a good gut-check.

FYI - If you go this route though, remember to uncheck that setting when you go to do your final. Which I've accidentally done so many times that I now just create a loop section for my entire project when I go to render the final (so I just leave it checked all the time). It was an easy [good] habit for me to pickup, and I do it almost unconciously now.

I'll stop talking now...

Andrew