Aspect Ratio problem

sclg wrote on 3/21/2011, 3:41 PM
A bit of help for a newbie please...
I had problems with getting my camcorder .MOD files to display as widescreen but then I found the pointers on here to SDCopy and after that the movie itself was fine. Imported OK and shows up as the correct 16:9 aspect ratio.

I now want to overlay some slides over the video in various places. I have these as jpg files and they are of course 4:3 aspect ratio. I'm inserting them on a new video track using 'Insert slideshow'. (One at a time as i only want individual slides.)
BUT...
whatever I do and whatever size I make the jpgs, they are sized to be the full width of the frame so the top and bottom of each slide is missing.
What I want, of course, is for them to be the HEIGHT of the frame with the video behind showing through at each side of the slide.

Any idea what I'm doing wrong??
Thanks
Steve

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 3/21/2011, 3:53 PM
Open up Pan/Crop for each still image event, right-mouse-button click in the cropping frame, and choose "match output aspect".
sclg wrote on 3/21/2011, 4:11 PM
That didn't help I'm afraid - made no difference.
I can use the pan/crop window to make it fit by increasing the height but then the slide goes completely out of focus and is unreadable???

Steve
TOG62 wrote on 3/22/2011, 12:41 AM
I believe that the correct setting is Match source aspect.
sclg wrote on 3/22/2011, 5:43 AM
That got the aspect ratio right, but only showed a small part of the centre of the slide!!
vkmast wrote on 3/22/2011, 6:11 AM
I don't quite get this...widescreen video track for the movie and dropping .jpegs 4:3 on the video overlay track showing the movie left and right beneath not working for you?
Chienworks wrote on 3/22/2011, 6:56 AM
It's possible you've got the "maintain aspect ratio" disabled in pan/crop. Make sure this is turned on, then "match output aspect" will be the correct choice. With it disabled it will stretch the image rather than cropping it.
TOG62 wrote on 3/22/2011, 7:40 AM
Under Source, you probably need to change Stretch to fill frame: to Yes
sclg wrote on 3/22/2011, 3:36 PM
Chienworks - "maintain aspect ratio" is enabled.
TOG62 - Stretch to fill frame is yes.
If I 'match output aspect' then the slide overlay stretches to 16:9 and - again - only shows a portion of the middle of the slide.
See www.kmtalk.org.uk/xx2.jpg
If I select 'match source aspect', the aspect ratio is right but still only part of the slide.
See www.kmtalk.org.uk/xx1.jpg
The original slide is www.kmtalk.org.uk/xx3.jpg

I must be doing something stupid!!
Steve
Chienworks wrote on 3/22/2011, 3:47 PM
OK, looking back more carefully over your original question and seeing the images, Vegas normally defaults to exactly what you want to do. Drag one of the image files onto a track above the video. If you have done nothing with track motion or pan/crop then the image should fit exactly in the height of the frame. There's nothing more to it than that.

So, at this point the only thing i can think of is that you may have set up some track motion on the track with the still images. Try getting rid of any track motion settings you may have added.
sclg wrote on 3/23/2011, 3:24 AM
Chienworks - you are a genius!!
Just dragging in the image as you suggested worked perfectly.
All my problems arose from trying to use 'Insert slideshow' to put them in. I'd never thought of drag-and-drop - told you I was a beginner!

Many thanks
Steve
Chienworks wrote on 3/23/2011, 7:32 AM
Ahhh, it never occurred to me that you might be doing anything other than drag & drop. I haven't used the Studio version since, oh ... version 2, so i'm unaware of all the new features. As a Vegas Pro user i do everything the long, hard, manual way ... because it just works, and in the end is usually faster, easier, and better than any of the new automatic toys.