Widescreen

[biferi]

I use Movie Studio 8. and I wanted to know about Widescreen?

I know both 4:3 Standard and 16:9 Widescreen are 720 X 480.

It is the PAR that changes and yes I understand how all of this works now.

But I made a lot of JPGs 853 X 480 because I want to use all of them to make a Widescreen Video.
So I set my Movie Studio Project to 720 X 480 Widescreen DV and pick the PAR of 1.2121 then I Import all of my JPEGs.

I Ad my Voice Over and go to Rander As.
Now I pick .avi but for my Format I do see Widescreen 720 X 480 and I see Uncompressed.

I did go for Uncompressed but it came out 4:3 so I know I sould pick Widescreen 720 X 480.

But I Pick Widescreen 720 X 480 it does not say it is Uncompressed.

I want it Uncompressed so I cane go back and Edit it and always have a good copy.

Thanks for the time and help.

[jagabo]

Uncompressed AVI doesn't support aspect ratio flags. Pixels are assumed to be square so DAR = FAR. 720x480 = 3:2 DAR. You set the PAR or DAR of the AVI in the next editor.

[_Al_]

To avoid resizing yet again of that already small resolution, you might consider making anamorphic 720x480 images directly in Photoshop, loading your images into anamorphic widescreen DV video template. You don't have to, but this way images are smoother.

Install utvideo codec. This is lossless video, that you can use for archiving, uncompressed are a bit larger. Render As, Video For Windows AVI and select that utvideo codec, choose 4:2:0 or 4:2:2 (larger files), don't forget to check interlace in CUSTOM if your footage is interlaced.
This will save your video as 720x480 video. If you decide to edit it again you have to interpret it/conform it in Vegas again as 16:9 video (right click video/properties/media).
Same if you play that video, you tell the player it is 16:9 video.

[biferi]

So if I Pick .avi and select NTSC DV 720 X 480 Uncompressed it will remember that it was a Widescreen.
Even if it looks 4:3 on the computer when I play it?

So if I open it again to make a Widescreen Video or anything it will know that it was Widescreen to start with?

Do I have it right?

[_Al_]

NTSC DV avi is not uncompressed. It is DV avi , you perhaps mean rendering NTSC DV without recompression. DV avi is a exception to avi format, it has 4:3 or 16:9 flag information in it. If you Render As to Avi and choosing uncompressed, lossless video (utcodec for example) there is no information about DAR, display aspect ratio.

[biferi]

Ok let me go slow.

I Imported a lot of JPGs that are 583x480 and this is a Widescreen image.

And I Ad my Voice over and now I go to Rander As.
In Save Type Box I Picked Video For Windows .AVI.

Then in the Templates Box I pick Default Template Uncompressed.

And it says it will be 720x480 so I thought because it will be Uncompressed it will keep the Widescreen look.
But it did not it made it into a 4x3 Square Video.

Now I did see in the Templates Box
NTSC DV Widscreen 720x480 Pix Ratio 1.212 Uncompressed Open DML

Would this be what I want to pick to Save my Video Uncompressed but keep it as Widescreen?

[_Al_]

Ok you import those widescreen images and want to render video.

But what do you want to get? Just uncompressed avi?

-It was mentioned couple of times that avi does not keep DAR. Only DVavi. So there is no point to set it if you export avi and it is not DVavi.

-also, uncompressed is too large, you might choose some lossless codec for archiving, not uncompressed.

- you might want to export same resolution as your images are, but not 853x480 but rather 854x480 because you do not want to have odd number in video size. You'd need to re-do it though, so it is not resized again, not sure how complicated would that be for you . Vegas has a replace events function, you might make new 854x480 images and just replace them in Vegas into yout finished project. Set project properties to 854x480 , square pixel 1:1, and export again 1:1, not 16:9.

It is not clear why you want to export anamorpic video 720x480 with 16:9 flag. That we usually do if exporting Mpeg2, DVD or DV avi. It looks you need neither of those.
Or are you making DVD or DVavi so you want to archive it as 720x480?

[jagabo]

And it says it will be 720x480 so I thought because it will be Uncompressed it will keep the Widescreen look.
But it did not it made it into a 4x3 Square Video.

Once again: AVI has no support for Display Aspect Ratio or Pixel Aspect Ratio flags (individual codecs used in AVI may include DAR or PAR flags, but the uncompressed "codec" doesn't). Players and editors therefore assume square pixels. A 720x480 AVI will play with a 3:2 aspect ratio (720/480 = 3/2).

In general:

DAR = FAR * PAR

where DAR is the Display Aspect Ratio, the final shape of the displayed picture, FAR is the Frame Aspect Ratio the relative frame dimensions, and PAR is the Pixel Aspect Ratio (the shape of individual pixels). For example:

DAR =  FAR * PAR
16:9 = 720:480 * 32:27
16/9 = 720/480 * 32/27
1.778 = 1.5 * 1.185185
7.778 = 1.778

If you want a 16:9 display from a 720x480 uncompressed AVI you have to override what the player thinks and force the DAR to 16:9 (or 4:3 in the case of 4:3 video). For later editing/encoding you override what the editor/encoder thinks of the PAR/DAR after importing the uncompressed source.

[biferi]

Ok I did see some settings.

Under Save As Type
I see one option for Widescreen
MainConcept MPG2.

Then under the Template
I can pick the option
NTSC Widescreen Video Stream
Audio None
Video 29.97 FPS 720x480

Now I know this will just make a Widescreen MPEG2. Video with NO Audio.
I would Ad it when I make the DVD I get this.

So if I import JPEGs that are 854x480 and use these setting it will keep a Widescreen look do I have this right?

[_Al_]

Yes, it should be alright.

To get that audio for DVD, export audio as AC3 , which should be named like Dolby Digital AC3 Studio or similar.

[biferi]

OK thank you for all your help I understand more then I did.

Now just one more setting.

Under Save As Type
I see .avi

Then under Templates I see
NTCS DV Widescreen

And the Specs it gives is
Audio: 48,000 Hz, 16 Bit, Stereo, PCM Uncompressed.
Video: 29.97 fps, 720x480, Lower field first.
Pixel Aspect Ratio: 1.212. OpenDML compatible.
Widescreen NTSC DV video files compatible with Sony Video Capture.

Now the Pix Ratio is for Widescreen but you say .avi will not see Pix Ratio it will just see 4:3 not Widescreen.
So can explain this?

And it says Uncompressed but does this mean just the Audio will be Uncompressed?

Thanks for all the time.

[_Al_]

That is that exception that was mentioned. DVavi is an exception, it can store that aspect ratio information, 16:9.

Those extensions, like avi, mp4, mkv think of them as containers. Inside them there is a video format and audio format that is not always the same. So as for AVI container, you can have DV inside (think of them like a bunch of jpg frames), or lossless codecs (utvideo, lagarith, hufyuv), almost lossless (cineform), or DivX or XviD. All those codecs could be within avi container. None of those avi containers can carry aspect ratio information, or those video streams within them, you just have to know what aspect ratio it is, if you generate it as anamorphic (with/height is not real) and then confirm to it within videoeditor or set it properly in software player, because if you generate it that way, you know what aspect ratio is. Again except DVavi.

[biferi]

Thank you for all the help and time again.

Now I know what 4:3 Ratio is.
It is the First and Old Ratio and it is Square like.

And 16:9 is Widescreen like Movies and new TVs.
But when you say Anamorphic is this Widescreen or is it not or is it like Widescreen?

[jagabo]

Now I know what 4:3 Ratio is.
It is the First and Old Ratio and it is Square like.

It is a literal 4:3 aspect ratio, 4 parts wide by 3 parts tall, or 1.33 (4/3) times wider than tall. It was used for most television before the advent of high definition TV.

And 16:9 is Widescreen like Movies and new TVs.

Modern HD TVs are usually 16:9, 16 parts wide by 9 parts tall, or 1.778 (16/9) times wider than tall. But movies come in a wide variety of aspect ratios, mostly from 1.37:1 to 2.4:1. 4:3 and 16:9 are not common aspect ratios for movies -- only for made-for-TV movies.

But when you say Anamorphic is this Widescreen or is it not or is it like Widescreen?

The term anamorphic comes from film where a cylidrical lens was used to squeeze a wide screen picture onto 1.37:1 film. On projection a reverse cylindrical lens was used to stretch the picture back to wide screen proportions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anamorphic_format

With DVDs anamorphic usually means a 16:9 picture is squeezed into the 720x480 (3:2) or 720x576 (5:4) DVD frame. The DVD player (or TV) stretches the picture back to 16:9 during playback. But in truth, 4:3 DVDs are also anamorphic because the DVD frame is never 4:3 (as noted above it's either 3:2 or 5:4). So the player has to stretch or squeeze the picture back to 4:3 for display.

[_Al_]

oops, again,missed jagabo's input, so making this short ...

Anamorphic has nothing to do with widescreen, you can have anamorpic video, like DV avi, and it could be 4:3 or 16:9 (widescreen)

[Cornucopia]

jagabo is accurate
...But, when most (other, lay) people speak of anamorphic, they are THINKING anamorphic widescreen, or just widescreen.

Anamorpic = non-square. Could be non-square thin rectangles, or thick, very thin, or very thick.

Remember the formula.

Scott

[biferi]

So as you told me NTSC DV Widescreen is the one .AVI that can handel Widescreen Format.

I just have one thing to ask?
If I use the Format
Audio: 48,000 Hz, 16 Bit, Stereo, PCM Uncompressed.
Video: 29.97 fps, 720x480, Lower field first.
Pixel Aspect Ratio: 1.212. OpenDML compatible.

Does this mean just my Audio will be Uncompressed or my Video to?
Thanks.

[smrpix]

So as you told me NTSC DV Widescreen is the one .AVI that can handel Widescreen Format.

I just have one thing to ask?
If I use the Format
Audio: 48,000 Hz, 16 Bit, Stereo, PCM Uncompressed.
Video: 29.97 fps, 720x480, Lower field first.
Pixel Aspect Ratio: 1.212. OpenDML compatible.

Does this mean just my Audio will be Uncompressed or my Video to?
Thanks.

PCM audio is uncompressed.
Your video is encoded/compressed as DV. This is a typical configuration.

[biferi]

Ok so I am going to Render As NTSC DV Widescreen with the Template above.
But one thing I need to know?

When I Render with this Template and then come back next month and want to put this video into another video and Add things and then make a whole new video.

I always think I am going to be doing 2. Compression and this is bad.

Am I right or is NTSC DV Widescreen Format not that bad or what am I not understanding?

Thanks.

[Cornucopia]

Every time you re-compress using lossy compression, you have loss. Hence the name.

DV is one of many forms of lossy compression (this also includes the vp family and most of the mpeg family).
Doesn't matter if it square pixelled or non-square (anamorphic - thin or thick).

How much loss depends on the codec and the settings (esp. bitrate), but as for your case, each generation of DV usually is noticeably worse.

scott

[biferi]

Well let me tell you one of the things I want to do.

I have a Widescreen Image with Text it is a Graphic.
And I put my Voice over with it.
It is me just talking about what I do.

So it is about 30 SEC. long and I used the NTSC DV Widescreen .avi format that is above.

Now this is on my Hard Drive and I want to use in the front of any videos I make.

So let say I make a new video with FX in it.
I want to Import the video of my Image with the Voice over to put in the front of the new video.

So when I Render As NTSC DV Widecreen I know what you mean the Video I will put in the front will be Encoded to make a whole new video.

This will be Running the video in the front through an Encoder 2. Times.

I get everything you are telling me.

So if I make a video and I know I will be putting it into another video to make other videos you would tell me Save It As Uncompressed.

But the only Format I see in my list for Uncompressed is .avi NTSC DV and it is 4:3.
I need it to save as Uncompressed Widescreen.

So what CODEC Format sould I look for in my Drop Down List?

[jagabo]

I need it to save as Uncompressed Widescreen.

Any uncompressed or lossless codec in AVI is widescreen if you say it is. All you have to do is tell your editor.

[_Al_]

There is no such a thing like uncompressed widescreen, just uncompressed. If you export 720x480 as uncompressed and the you export it back to Vegas, you need to interpret footage as 16:9 > you need to tell Vegas it is 16:9 video.
For example, if you import that uncompressed into a NTSC DV widescreen project , you need to right click video clip, select properties then Media tab and choose Pixel Aspect Ratio as NTSC widescreen.


Do you need to work with NTSC DV at all?

You perhaps just need some MP4 video for viewing, presentation? Then have Vegas project settings as your pictures are, 16:9, whatever resolution that is 16:9, even bigger than 854x480, for example 1280x720, 1920x1080, if you pictures have enough resolution. As a matter of fact, it doesn't even need to be exactly 16:9, but just some ratio that is the same like your pictures. You seem to work with NTSC DV, but not sure, if you need it at all.

[Cornucopia]

Also, if you are smart about how you append/concatenate the files, you can get away with not recompressing.

However, to do this, you need to make sure you are using an editor that uses smart recompression (which only works with certain formats), or you need to use an append or concatenation tool (such as ffmpeg).
And in either case, and THIS IS IMPORTANT: you have to make sure that the specs for each segment are identical (except perhaps bitrate). So that means, frame size (resolution H, resolution W), framerate (fps, and should be CONSTANT or CFR, not Variable or VFR), codec, level & profile, etc. This goes for video & audio (unless you work on them separately, and that makes it trickier anyway).

So, for example, if you have your intro graphic clip recorded as DV.avi (say, Type2), 720x480 @ 29.97fps, Widescreen, 25Mbps, you will need to make sure your second clip is also those same specs. Or vice-versa with whichever file you want as the reference. And then you can use ffmpeg to concatenate them WITHOUT RECOMPRESSION.

Important note: I strongly do not recommend using a general binary file concatenator, because it doesn't properly deal with the fact that each file has its own individual headers and structure based on its length/size, and a concatenated file SHOULD have only 1 header and a consistent structure based on the NEW length/size, but binary file concatenators will make a new file that has 2 (or more) headers and multiple-sized structures.

Notice I gave you an example of widescreen dv.avi. If you choose a format that doesn't support non-square, anamorphic pixels, and you want widescreen, you will just have to make each be widescreen in resolution to begin with (e.g. 1920x1080, 1280x720, 852x480).
The magic target resolution that you've mentioned, 720x480, can be narrow-screen/square/4:3, etc. with narrow pixels, or widescreen with wide pixels (16:9 or otherwise), or 3:2 ratio if using square pixels. Those ones mention above in parentheses just happen to be ~16:9 when used with square pixels.

Scott

[biferi]

I do see what you say.
I can go into the Video Settings and tell the Aspect Ratio to be Widescreen.

But you told me .avi uncompressed is 4:3 and all .avi are 4:3.
And you told me the only .avi that is Widescreen is NTSC DV.
You told me this is the only one that can be Widescreen.

Please tell me what you ment?
Thanks for the time.

[jagabo]

But you told me .avi uncompressed is 4:3 and all .avi are 4:3.
And you told me the only .avi that is Widescreen is NTSC DV.
You told me this is the only one that can be Widescreen.

Nobody told you any of that.

[Cornucopia]

This (below) is what we have been telling you the whole time:

AVI is a container.
A container that is based on old technology.
That old technology didn't expect, so didn't support, non-square (aka anamorphic) pixels (in the form of DAR/FAR or PAR/SAR metadata).
So the AVI container itself, alone, can tell you NOTHING about whether it needs to be considered anamorphic or not. So, NORMALLY, in the absence of that metadata, it is considered square-pixelled. (Other containers may/do support AR flags).

However, the codec/stream(s) WITHIN the container (or raw, without the container) may be able to support the mentioned metadata to designate square or non-square pixels on their own.
Examples of codecs that support this: DV family, MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4-ASP (aka divx/xvid), AVC, HEVC.

However, all of those in the MPEG family are RARELY used inside an AVI container (they are usually put inside an MPEG System stream, Program stream, Transport stream, MP4-type file, or maybe MOV or MKV format).

So for our argument's sake, the only one regularly seen inside an AVI is DV. And all DV streams are non-square pixelled, so they must include the anamorphic (AR) information. And it is expected from them.

Notice that all this time I was talking about DAR, FAR, PAR, SAR, anamorphic, Square pixels, Non-square pixels and I never said a word about "widescreen". Why?

Because, that is only one of the RESULTS of what you get when you combine those things. You could also get Full-screen, Ultra-widescreen, Narrow portrait mode (vertical like a phone) screen, Square screen, etc.


If you have a 1920x1080 file. Let's say AVI, but with DIVX codec (another exception). And you have square pixels (IOW, no anamorphic), its ratio is

1920 / 1080 * 1  / 1

, which = 1.77777 or 16:9. Traditional tv widescreen.


If you have that same file with a 9:16 PAR setting (aka very skinny anamorphic pixels), the ratio is

1920 / 1080 * 9 / 16

, which = 1.000 or 1:1 or SQUARE image. Not wide at all.


You could also have that same file with a 4:3 PAR (aka slightly fat anamorphic pixels), and the ratio is

1920 / 1080 * 4 / 3

, which = 64/27 or ~2.37:1 (slightly wider than 21:9). Very widescreen.


Same # of pixels in resolution either way, it's only different in how they are arranged on a grid.

All of this is calculated with the universal formula:

Width / Height * PAR = DAR

Note that some sources refer to PAR (pixel aspect ratio) as SAR (Sample AR), and refer to DAR (Display AR) as FAR (Frame AR).
Just don't confuse Sample AR with Storage AR, which doesn't exist except as a cheat/lazy shorthand for W/H.

So, again, AVI is with the main exception of DV, only square pixels. DV the exception is non-square. AVI can be widescreen or not depending on how many pixels. DV-AVI can be widescreen or not depending on its AR metadata flag (because it's always the same # of pixels -- 720x480 for NTSC and 720x576 for PAL).

Clear as mud now?

Scott

[biferi]

Sorry you say
NTSC DV avi is not uncompressed.
It is DV avi , you perhaps mean rendering NTSC DV without recompression.
DV avi is a exception to avi format, it has 4:3 or 16:9 flag information in it.
If you Render As to Avi and choosing uncompressed, lossless video (utcodec for example) there is no information about DAR, display aspect ratio.

So NTSC DV AVI is the only AVI Format that will Uncode 4:3 or 16:9 do I have this right?
Because you did say any of the AVIs will support Widescreen this is what got me mixed up.
Thanks.

[jagabo]

So NTSC DV AVI is the only AVI Format that will Uncode 4:3 or 16:9 do I have this right?

No. It's the only one that editors may detect as 4:3 or 16:9 automatically.

[biferi]

OK OK I am very very sorry I went back and Re Read your Post to me.

AVI is a container not the CODEC inside.
The Container does not Encode Data about the 4:3 or 16:9 video.
And it was out before 16:9 started to be Encoded.

The only one Format in the AVI Container that will support 16:9 is the DV.
So when I pick AVI this is my Container and then I pick NTSC DV Widescreen this is DV so it will support 16:9.

Tell me I have it right now?