720x480 video with 4:3 source?

[Chaobunny12]

I've been making my videos the same way for ages. Only recently, someone told me that a 4:3 source DVD can't and shouldn't be made into a 720x480 AMV. Is this true? I've been making my AMVs for a long time like that and they seem fine.

I work in Vegas, and I use a 1.00 pixel aspect ratio because V-Dub seems to automatically make all my rendered clips that way. The same person told me that this is wrong, that 1.00 only belongs with 640x480 and that .9091 goes with 720x480. To change all my clips individually per project would be a huge pain in the behind, and Vegas doesn't allow collective changing of properties of clips for that sort of thing.

My question is- is this a huge deal? Because so far, it hasn't been a problem and most AMVs are 720x480 anyway. I just thought I'd ask.

[Scintilla]

I've been making my videos the same way for ages. Only recently, someone told me that a 4:3 source DVD can't and shouldn't be made into a 720x480 AMV. Is this true? I've been making my AMVs for a long time like that and they seem fine.

A 4:3 source DVD should only be made into a 720x480 AMV if you're encoding it to MPEG-1, -2, or -4 and you've set the aspect ratio flag to display it as 4:3. If you're encoding to AVI, it should be 640x480 (or 512x384, or 320x240, etc.).

But editing at 720x480 with a 1.0 aspect ratio is fine, as long as you modify any outside still images to match (make them 9/8 as wide as they should be). Just remember that it won't look quite the same when you encode for distribution or contests.

[Chaobunny12]

Okay, thanks. I usually convert to MPEG-2 when I'm finished anyway.