My DVD Handycam claims to shoot in widescreen. I had assumed that since it is a consumer-level camera, it was actually "fake" widescreen with the top and bottom masked. So I imported the files using Vegas, and in Explorer within Vegas, the resulting files are labeled as 720x480 in the information box underneath the files list. That seemed to confirm my assumption.
However, when I put the files into a new 4:3 project, the sides are cropped and it fills the frame vertically. I changed the project settings to NTSC Widescreen and it fills the frame with no cropping, letterboxing, pillarboxing or stretching. This confuses me. If the file is 4:3 and "fake" widescreen, shouldn't it be letterboxed in a 4:3 project? Or (if it's true 16:9) is the Explorer not interpreting the aspect ratio but Vegas is?
I'm confused. Hope all this made sense.
Christa
However, when I put the files into a new 4:3 project, the sides are cropped and it fills the frame vertically. I changed the project settings to NTSC Widescreen and it fills the frame with no cropping, letterboxing, pillarboxing or stretching. This confuses me. If the file is 4:3 and "fake" widescreen, shouldn't it be letterboxed in a 4:3 project? Or (if it's true 16:9) is the Explorer not interpreting the aspect ratio but Vegas is?
I'm confused. Hope all this made sense.
Christa