Converting 16:9 DV-AVI to Divx/XVid, its always horizontally squashed...

[mjvgiese]

I made a little video in Sony Vegas. I shot it on Mini DV, 16:9. I did all my editing, and when I use Vegas to output to DV-AVI, it looks fine. But I need to convert it to 16:9 Divx or Xvid (I don't really care which one), and everytime I try it the picture gets squashed horizontally. I've tried using Vegas to output to Divx and Xvid, and the video gets squashed with both. I've tried using Vegas to output to DV-AVI and then using VirtualDub to convert to Divx and also XVid, and the video gets squashed.

My target is to upload the video onto facebook for my friends to see. (I actually uploaded the finished 520MB DV-AVI (which looks fine on my computer) onto facebook, but it too is a bit squashed after being uploaded and going through facebook's "conversion" process. I'm hoping that by using Xvid or Dixv, it won't get squashed on facebook.....) Maybe I'm not setting the Divx and XVid encoding settings right, I'm not sure, as I've never really done any encoding to either one.

Any tips for getting my video to look like a normal 16:9 Divx or Xvid, without it getting squashed? I suppose I could just upload my video as a 4:3 so there's black bars on the top and bottom of it, but 16:9 is just so much cooler....

Thanks for any help!!

[manono]

Resize it before encoding for AVI. If it's being encoded at 720x480, resize to 624x352 or other similar 1.77:1 ratio (assuming it's really 16:9 to begin with).

[guns1inger]

You have to resize the video to fit a 1:1 pixel aspect ratio. Personally, while I love Vegas, I find that it's handling of Divx/Xvid is next to useless. I would output your DV-AVI file, then use Xvid4PSP or MeGUI to convert the file to Xvid. If you are happy with Virtualdub, use the resize filter to get the correct aspect ratio and encode from there. The simplest widescreen resize is 640 x 360 for 1.778 (16:9) material.