Aspect Ratio - DVD Cam Files

CWatkins wrote on 1/6/2009, 11:00 AM
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

Comments

John_Cline wrote on 1/6/2009, 12:19 PM
Standard definition cameras that record 16x9 by horizontally squeezing the 16x9 image into a 720x480 frame and then, upon playback, horizontally expanding it back out to 16x9. Essentially, it takes an 873x480 image, squeezes it to 720x480 and expands it back out to 873x480. Commercial DVDs use exactly the same method. More information is available here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anamorphic_widescreen

If you're doing a standard 4x3 project, then you would rightfully expect the 16x9 footage to be letterboxed. Right-click on a 16x9 clip and go to "Properties", under the "Media" tab, make sure that the "Pixel Aspect Ratio" is set for "1.2121 (NTSC DV Widescreen)"
CWatkins wrote on 1/6/2009, 1:44 PM
Thanks for the info. The PAR is indeed 1.2121. I just assumed that the camera would crop instead of squeezing.

You would think I would have figured that out since I worked in the movie theatre industry for ten years. For some reason, the word "anamorphic" never popped into my head. It should have, since it seemed like every time I got roped into starting a projector, the automation would fail and it would start in the wrong format. Those lens turrets are NOT easy to turn manually. :-)

Christa

AtomicGreymon wrote on 1/7/2009, 1:45 PM
873x480 is a bit wider than 16x9, though... what I've always wondered, does the extra just end up off-screen, or what?