FAQ about edit templates, wide screen mode, field order etc?

[Riv]

I understand these must be FAQs but trying to search for this with different keywords, I either get a million different topics and posts or get hardly anything relevant.

As described in a different thread, having worked with VS8 for a while, I just upgraded to what I believe is VS 11.5. However, starting to do some editing, I got a bit confused on the VS project settings I should have in different cases.

Trevor's User Guide for VS had very good examples on how 16:9 and 4:3 video should look like in different cases. I also learned that in File/Options I can set VS to ask if I want the project properties to be changed based on the first inserted clip (Why is this not on by default...?).

But things that still seem a bit confusing to me include

1) I installed VS stating I'm in a PAL country. Everything I ever do is for PAL only, no need for NTSC. Still, when I start a new project and try to "Edit files in AVI format" rather than "MPEG" in the edit template (I'm sorry, I realise I do not remember the exact words in the options and I don't have VS on the machine where I write this), the template settings are set to "NTSC". If I go to the options for the AVI edit format, I cannot change NTSC to PAL (that option is greyed). I cannot find any setting for 16:9 here, either. Going to Edit mode, I find the edit area on the screen is not 16:9 (Trevor's trick of changing the background to yellow proves this). Going back to MPEG, everything seems to be fine.

However, any clips I capture (Sony DV camcorder, firewire) do have properties of PAL 720x576 16:9. And if I answer "Yes" to "change project settings based on the first clip", the project settings do change accordingly (edit file format AVI, PAL, 720x576, 16:9 ). So my project looks fine, after all, and I trust that even the DVDs I have not yet burned will look just fine.

But picky as I am, I would like to understand why I cannot change the AVI settings manually. Is that just a fact of life I cannot affect and therefore should not worry about? Or am I missing something obvious here and will get in trouble later? What if the first clip is different from the others (like from analogue sources, or 4:3) and I do not want the whole project to be changed to those settings?

2) I want to burn a single DVD with some old 4:3 material as well as 16:9 material. Is that a problem? I want 4:3 to show with the correct aspect ratio, i.e. with black vertical stripes around it on my 16:9 TV. I will try this out myself to see if it works, but if someone already knows what will happen and what I need to take in consideration, that will speed up my work.

[Black Lab]

This thread might help: http://phpbb.ulead.com.tw/EN/viewtopic.php?t=13421