Re: Sony Vegas says NTSC=655x480 (Correct) then why WMP and other say 640x480

By convention, an analog TV would always show you a 4:3 section of the picture. It would also mask the left and right edges of the picture which would vary in raggedness depending on how good all the tubes were in your TV. And they were never all that good.

Remember, this standard developed before there was such a thing as solid state electronics. TV's had to be warmed up for a minute or two before the picture was stable, and then pictures would vary grossly from one TV to another. So there was a lot of room for slop built into the way TVs would display the picture.

Now, as to why WMP would display your 720x480 image as 640x480 while Vegas might display it as 655x480...most programs tend to try to display SD video in a 4:3 ratio because that's what the designers think they're supposed to do and it's what the customer expects. Vegas, on the other hand, just sticks to the math and interprets sample rates the way they are supposed to be interpreted. Vegas has it's roots in audio, after all, and DV is just a digital sampling of an analog standard.

In the end, the digital SD image for DV and for SD DVDs is still 720x480, no matter how the player interprets it.

Rob Mack