Resolution

[couNti]

I was reading the guides, but got lost someplace. For 720 x 480 footage ripped off a DVD, what would I need to do to get it to a larger resolution? I don't know if I have to letterbox it or not or can I edit with 720 x 480 and resize it on the final encode?

[The Origonal Head Hunter]

720x480 is the standard for NTSC video, why would you need to upscale it at all, since that could only result in a loss of quality?

[couNti]

so upscaling is bad, is it not recommended to edit with 720 x 480? or does it not really matter?

[The Origonal Head Hunter]

Upscaling, for the most part, only makes the quality worse. It's probably best to do thus:
Downscale to 640x480 for 4:3 AR
or
Upscale slightly to 848x480 for 16:9 AR.

[Vivaldi]

If it's widescreen, then upscaling to 848x480 will just replicate the flag that stretchs the DVD when you play it. Other than that, you shouldn't do any upscaling. Note that HD footage (which people are starting to use more of) is 720p, or very rarely 1080p. But don't upscale to that if it wasn't already.

[Phantasmagoriat]

you will need to find out if you have widescreen or fullscreen,
BUT you still keep it at 720x480 in both cases [lol wut]

Assuming your final encode is being put into an .mp4 or .mkv container,
just set the AR (Aspect Ratio) flag to 16:9 or 4:3 so that during playback it
automatically stretches to 854x480 (for 16:9, widescreen footage) or 720x540 (for 4:3, fullscreen footage)

only upscale if you know how to make use of the extra resolution
only downscale if you are worried about filesize

[Qyot27]

If it's widescreen, then upscaling to 848x480 will just replicate the flag that stretchs the DVD when you play it.

Replicating the flag is exactly the reason I don't consider resizing 720x480 to 848x480 'upscaling'. As far as I'm concerned, that term should only be reserved for height adjustments, not width adjustments, even if it still technically fits the description.

Resizing to 848x480 before editing is only useful in cases where:
A) you simply prefer to edit with square pixels (which would mean 4:3 material gets the 640x480 treatment)
B) you plan on releasing the video as 848x480 (perhaps this is a particular with SAPs, I dunno) - although this could also be done after editing, but for consistency's sake.

[Scintilla]

Resizing to 848x480 before editing is only useful in cases where:
A) you simply prefer to edit with square pixels (which would mean 4:3 material gets the 640x480 treatment)
B) you plan on releasing the video as 848x480 (perhaps this is a particular with SAPs, I dunno) - although this could also be done after editing, but for consistency's sake.

I would add another case to that list: if you're making a multi-source video that includes both widescreen and 4:3 footage, and you want to keep all 480 lines for all your sources. In that case, you'd resize to 848x480 if you wanted to edit with square pixels, or to 960x480 if you didn't want to resize the 4:3 footage.