H.264 in widescreen?

[XTR-91]

Time and again (or maybe it was only once), I’ve tried exporting H.264 (AVC) format in widescreen using Sony Vegas Pro 9. When I playback video in QuickTime, the video is always 4:3 – no letterboxing, just asquish from 16:9 to 4:3. Is ‘1.3’ the correct ‘pixel aspect ratio’ for exporting H.264 in widescreen, or is this a limitation of the player version I am using? If not, how do I export H.264 video in widescreen?

I’ve never been able to successfullyview widescreen video in QuickTime before, even with the assurance of DV-AVI video that I know is widescreen.

[birdcat]

I have set up a number of templates which I use in Vegas Pro 8. Here is one with it’s settings and results (right click and view image for non-squished look):

[XTR-91]

But before shooting in HD, have you ever been successful getting QuickTime to play 720×480 files in widescreen format? 1920×1080 is a native widescreen resolution – you get widescreen video out of 1920 by 1080 square pixels. 1440×1080 you don’t, which QuickTime’s given me trouble with that also.

I’m still confused about where the problem is – QuickTime or export. If nothing else, I’ll save 852×480, but I’d rather keep it 720×480 for the web.

[birdcat]

I was under the impression that 1440 X 1080 was for HDV which uses an anamorphic pixel so when viewed in comes out 1920 X 1080 (like CinemaScope).

Just set your properties to NTSC DV Widescreen (720 X 480) and modify the size on render.

For MP4 or MOV containers (using H.264 codec) the target in either computer or web playback, so if you just adjusted the size of the output to 720 wide using 16:9 screen ratio (720 X 406) still using 1.0 for your pixel ratio it should work fine.

[Marcel]

There is a small chance that the monitor is not set to the correct settings. Can you view any video in 16/9 widescreen?

I have encountered this when clients view my video files.

[Author]

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