How to add a colored top and bottom for widescreen

[Jeff_NJ]

Well, I hope I'm explaining this right. What I want to do is make a widescreen video, but instead of the top and bottom bars being the usual black, I want them to be white. I've seen this in various commercials etc.

Now here is another question. I'm using Vegas 7. If I set the project to standard DV, then import my widescreen video, this works, and I can see it. But am I supposed to be setting the project to widescreen? When I do that, I can only see the video and not the bars at the top and bottom.

How do these commercials look on a widescreen tv? Do they still have the top and bottom bars, or is that just because I'm viewing on a 4:3 tv?

Thanks, and I hope some of that made sense, lol.

Jeff

[Cornucopia]

What you're REALLY making is Standard 4:3 video, but LETTERBOXED to "look like" widescreen. That's how "all those commercials" do it. I've done a number of those commercials myself (including the different coloring).

Make your project settings STANDARD DV. Import you widescreen footage, keeping its original AR. It should size down to fit the screen's width, leaving the top and bottom clear for the "background color" (whatever you choose),from a lower layer, to show through. If you don't have widescreen footage to import, you'll have to crop or stretch your 4:3 video to make it look like widescreen.

One of these commercials, when shown on a widescreen TV, will have both the colored letterboxing, and the usual black pillarboxing, unless the viewer has the TV set to "ZOOM", in which case it'll show ONLY the widescreen--at reduced quality because of the zoom--and will completely crop out both the normal 4:3 pillarboxing and your self-produced "color" letterboxing.

Scott

[FulciLives]

I've seen a couple of TV commercials that use white for the letterboxing and it is DAMN annoying! Hurts my eyes and I imagine it is bad for the TV as well.

If you are going to use white you better have a damn good reason for it ... other than trying to be "cool".

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[manono]

AviSynth can easily do it. Crop the amount you like (if necessary), and use the AddBorders command to add back the color you want. Example:

Crop(0,100,0,-100)
AddBorders(0,100,0,100,$FFFFFF)# or color_white

http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/AddBorders

There are many pre-sets, but it uses Hexadecimal Color Codes , preceeded by the dollar sign.

I think I agree with FulciLives that white is kind of annoying. Can't you use a color that's easier on the eyes? That Blue-grey color IBM uses in their ads is nice, I think.

[Alan69]

LOL best sales driven widescreen TV ad ever!

60 second spots, with the upper and lower borders flashing hard, think golden chalice in Adventure on Atari 2600. And some text in the middle, 'Just think, if you had a widescreen you wouldn't see the bars..'

Widescreen TV sales would double in no time, whine in the ear and pain in the eyeballs are great motivators..

[Alex_ander]

Letterbox(60,60,0,0,$CCCCCC)#grey
(for a 4:3 source image)

[Jeff_NJ]

Guys, thanks for the tips. Turns out I was doing it right, but wasn't sure.

YEah I cant say I really have a reason, this is just a personal project pretty much for fun and I was just experimenting. I'll try some other color combos. Seems white is NOT the color to use, lol.

Jeff