4:3 to 16:9

ritsmer wrote on 6/9/2006, 2:57 AM
All my stills and all the video-clips are in 4:3 format. Now I got a 16:9 TV to view my "films". If I do nothing, my stills and videos are stretched and everybody are looking as they had some overweight.
I can cut the top and bottom using Crop/Pan manually - but it a big effort for the 100+ pictures and videos in a "film".
I have looked - but can not find a way to automatically cut the top and bottom when I drag the items to the timeline or to do it for a group of items??
Of course I must afterwards adjust the Crop/Pan/Zoom on many items - but it would be a great help, if VMS had a way to do the initial work.
I am sure VMS can do so - but how :-)

Comments

Tim L wrote on 6/9/2006, 5:30 AM
Oooh, I wish I had a widescreen TV so I could deal with a problem like this, but I don't.

However, I think there is probably a setting on your TV about how to view 4:3 content -- to stretch it to fill the screen, or to pillar-box it, etc. This would leave vertical black bars on the left and right sides of your picture, but keep your 4:3 content "unstretched". (But I'm just kinda guessing about this, since I don't have a widescreen TV...)

Tim L
ggrussell wrote on 6/9/2006, 5:52 AM
You are correct Tim. There is a setting on the TV usually a zoom function.


ritsmer - For still images, it's much easier to resize/crop them before using them in VMS. I use a donate-ware app called Image Cropper. It even has a batch mode to crop those 4:3 to 16:9. It doesn't alter the originals, but saves to a copy.

Get IMage Cropper here

I also use this little app to crop digital camera files before sending them out to be printing at Walmart. That way I KNOW they are cropped the way I like. Image Cropper supports lots of aspect ratios like 4x6, 5x7, etc. The author does take donations via PayPal. I use it so much I feel like I should give him more. ;)
allyn wrote on 6/9/2006, 8:26 AM
you just need to set your tv not to stretch the picture when playing 4:3 videos and make sure your dvd player is set to widescreen also.

if you want to create 16:9 videos, set your project properties to widescreen and vms will do the right thing. but then you'll get into issues with generating the mpeg file with the widescreen bit set. search the forum for "dvdpatcher".
ritsmer wrote on 6/9/2006, 2:37 PM
To Tim L: I have a Philips 42 inch plasma able to show 1024x1024. Yesterday I got a Philips SLM5500 wireless media player, which can play my "home made" videos in real 16:9 (before I just played it in stretched 4:3 - but stretching is bad because everybody are looking like at least 15 kilos too heavy :-)

The hardware seems to make 1024x576 PAL the best choice.

Now this made me want to create a video in real 16:9. As my basic material for my last video (stills and videos from a skiing trip to La Plagne France) is in 4:3 this seemed to be a bad idea, however most of the media is shot with a 38 mm lens equivalent and so it is relatively wide angle - and because the pictures are recorded in 1600x1200 - there is a possibility to cut away the top- and bottom-parts of the media and so simulate a 19:9 recording.

And so I made a new project and am trying to make the video all over again - this time in 16:9. Doing so, I have realized, that there is no easy way - each and every picture must be cropped by hand in order to preserve the original perspective and the relations in the picture (foreground/background etc).
Actually this in no big effort, and it takes only 1-2 minutes per picture. At first I use the preset 16:9 Widescreen TV aspect ratio in Event Pan/Crop, and after this I move the cropped area up or down or do some zoom etc.

So far I have made, rendered and seen the first part of the video.
I think that the 16:9 format is great and that it can be simulated from 4:3 recordings - but that the result would be better if the stills and videos were recorded in real 16:9 also . Besides this you will choose the motives for the stills and the videos with other basic thoughts when you know that the end-result will be in 16:9 format - which ceartainly gives some astonishing possibilities - but also some limitations - i.e. try to make a picture using the mirror in a lift in 16:9...
ggrussell wrote on 6/9/2006, 5:23 PM
>>each and every picture must be cropped by hand in order to preserve the original perspective and >>

That's why I suggested Image Cropper. It does support 16:9 and has a batch mode. Much easier and quickier when you have a lot of photos. The only time I would futz with pan/zoom is - well - when I want to use it. I have used pan/zoom to crop a 4:3 video to 16:9 aspect fairly successfully. Unless you are really picky, it doesn't look too bad.

I don't know of ANY still camera that shoots in 16:9 so stills will always need to be cropped.
ritsmer wrote on 6/11/2006, 1:33 AM
:-) yes, but I think I am a little picky -

I normally use 2-3 hours of editing time per minute finished video - i.e. approx. 20 hours for the 6,5 minutes video from the last ski-trip.
It can be faster, if there is plenty of raw video footage and surplus still pictures.

How long time do you all use for such projects??
ggrussell wrote on 6/11/2006, 5:32 PM
I'm no Speilberg wanna be. ALL of my footage is a keeper except a few shots of the ground or floor. The hardest decision I have to make is the color of the DVD cover. LOL
autopilot wrote on 6/11/2006, 6:59 PM
I believe you can click the first photo, shift click the last one to select them all, then right click and make them a " group " to do things to all of them at once. Although you need to make your timeline 16:9 before you put the pictures on there, plus a couple other clicks here and there that I can't remember at the moment.