Forgot to mention I'm mostly interested in knowing when and when not to check this box for rendering. A few years back there was a thread on this forum that some one had a rendering problem until they unchecked the box. 50% of my rendering is AVCHD to DVD, 25% BLU-RAY and 25% YOUTUBE is it best to keep the box checked or unchecked when rendering to these formats from a AVCHD project?

As Peter sez...it's always best to match your source settings. Click on it, browse to your source files click on one, Vegas matches it as close as possible. Job done.

Arthur, I always match may source file using auto mode in project settings.
I have no problem with source or render settings.
My main question was the check box for (adjusting source media to better match render settings) if I'm rendering AVCHD for a DVD or YouTube I know what my render settings should be so why does Sony Vegas Pro have this check box and when should any one use it or not use it?

Jerry K

My guess (and it is only a guess) is that by checking that box when you had say an SD project with HD source, the HD would be converted immediately to SD within the operations of Vegas rather than at display or render times. If that is so, then if you zoomed in say 2x you would lose quality with the box ticked but not so(more or less) without it ticked . You might like to experiment to see if that is the case.

Thanks Arthur & Peter for your reply. Being no one really knows what the pros and cons are in checking or not checking the box for (adjusting source media to better match project or render settings) please let me ask the question a different way.

How many of you keep the box checked all the time when rendering HD projects for Blu-ray, YouTube or DVD? I think it should be kept checked all the time but why Sony gives us the option is the sixty four thousand dollar question.

Jerry K

I've heard enough cons over time, including this one, that I don't think I would leave it on by default. It may be there to improve preview, at most.

I've never noticed it and never noticed anything bad about it, but I'd assume that is because I use footage that already matches the project settings most of hte time.

It's one of those things that were added to appease the people who complained the other NLE's "automatically make the footage work great" in the other NLE.

But I see it like having my car headlights come on automatically if I don't rotate the knob to turn them on: I already do it so it doesn't help or hinder me. I don't need that hand holding.

I'm editing with Vegas pro10 does Vegas pro 11 and 12 have this check box option?

Jerry K

Sorry Jerry, misread your question - must order new glasses. :-(

Yes, the checkbox also features in later version of Vegas. I usually turn it off, (all of the time) as I've read here previous render problems caused by it.

Actually, this option is not related to matching project and media settings but enables automatic cropping of source media in a few special cases. The most relevant of these may be converting between SD and HD:

An HD 1920x1080 frame has a 16:9 aspect ratio. An SD 720x576 or 720x480 frame - due to its analog roots - includes a certain amount of horizontal padding, so its aspect ratio is slightly wider than 16:9. Importing HD footage into an SD project usually leaves small black bars at the left and right sides of the frame. These black padding areas are not part of the "active picture" and will be cropped on playback in a correctly configured environment (such as a hardware DVD player connected to a TV). Many software DVD players, however, do not handle the padding correctly, so the black bars (or whatever pixels are in there) become visible during playback. By enabling the "adjust source media" option, Vegas will zoom the SD image, filling the padding area with image pixels and cropping the top and bottom of the frame accordingly. Hardware players will then show cropping all around, but software players will show the picture spanning the entire display horizontally with slight cropping at the top and bottom.

If your source footage is HD, then the option has no effect when rendering to Blu-ray or YouTube. When rendering to DVD, you get standard-compliant output by disabling the box but might prefer to adjust for software player peculiarities by enabling it.

Thanks for that explanation satevis!!

Additional info from the Vegas help file. Same types of tweaks.

This setting will correct for the following types of inconsistencies:

DV media will be cropped for 320x240 Internet renders to prevent letterboxing.
DV widescreen media will be cropped in HD projects.
HD media will be cropped in DV widescreen projects.
486-line media will be cropped in 480-line projects.
480-line media will be padded in 486-line projects.