Using widescreen format

[SearchQuality]

Hi All. I shoot my videos using a Sony Handycam camcorder. The original format is PAL 720x576. Then in editing phase I wish to impose the display aspect ratio (DAR) 16:9. If I protect the pixel aspect ratio (PAR), then the picture has the proper 16:9 dimensions with 703x576, but there are two thin black lines on the two sides of the video. If I unprotect the PAR these two lines disappear. Could experienced please advise what settings should be used to get a proper undistorted image in widescreen format. Thanks.

[mike20021969]

What editing program are you using?

[SearchQuality]

Sony Vegas Movie Studio 10 Platinium.

[aedipuss]

widescreen square pixel is 1024x576. widescreen with dvd shaped pixels is 720x576. nothing is widescreen at 703x576, it isn't even allowed as it has an odd number of pixels.

are you shooting DVavi widescreen with the camera, or cropping to widescreen in studio? what is you intended output format?

[SearchQuality]

widescreen square pixel is 1024x576. widescreen with dvd shaped pixels is 720x576. nothing is widescreen at 703x576, it isn't even allowed as it has an odd number of pixels.

As I wrote above the clip coming from the camcorder is 720x576. This number 703x576 shows up when I try to put 16:9 template on the clip.

are you shooting DVavi widescreen with the camera, or cropping to widescreen in studio? what is you intended output format?

In fact I have two cameras shooting simultaneously. One is a Sony Handycam shooting MPEG in 16:9 ratio and the second one is another Sony shooting DVavi. When the clips from two cameras are merged to form the chapters of a DVD I want the whole film to be 16:9. Thus almost half of the clips have to be cropped and there pops up the problem I am trying to understand and to solve.

[edDV]

Some background concepts in overview. This can get complicated.

PAL digital broadcast (DVB) is 704x576i. If the source video is analog PAL, normal 4:3 will scale to ~702x576 (i.e. 704 with thin vertical side stripes). Wide 16:9 SD broadcast is also 704x576 but with different PAR.

PAR 4:3 = 1.0926
PAR 16:9 = 1.4568

DV and MPeg camcorders record to full width 720x576. This can be interpreted in two ways.

Vegas, Premiere and most other pro editors use the same Pixel Aspect Ratio (PAR) for both 704 and 720. This means the extra 8 pixel strips on both sides are interpreted as extra width beyond 16:9. If you were to broadcast this, the picture would be cropped to 704x576 with no change in PAR. Most HDTV sets will do the same with 720 source. First they crop to 704 then upscale.

DVD authors tend to interpret 720x576 as 16:9 and scale their source captures to 720 width. Some think they do this to reduce the letterbox width for movies. The problem is most TV displays will crop off the sides and upscale from 704. Computer players can be set either way but tend to default to 720x576 with no overscan. This causes broadcast source to show 8-9 pixel side stripes.

[aedipuss]

try setting the DV cam to shoot in widescreen to match the other cam's ar. in vegas set the video properties of the clips to widescreen and all should be just dandy on the timeline.