Correcting aspect ratio (total newbie question)

thomas-barnett wrote on 4/20/2018, 7:52 PM

I edited a movie for fun using some software I no longer have access to. I currently have Vegas Pro14 and would like to correct a mistake I made. When I originally did this, I exported the video in the wrong aspect ratio, so now when I open the file in any player the video is stretched vertically, with black bars on the sides. Can I use Vegas to "squash" the video down vertically and add the black bars to the top and bottom?

For example: When I open the movie in VLC it defaults to 16:9 which is too tall. If I manually set it in VLC to 2.39:1 the movie looks correct. I'd really like to use Vegas to clean up a couple cuts I made and export the file so it plays in the correct aspect ratio. I'm totally new to Vegas though, and I can't figure out how to do so. I'm just doing this for fun, I am not a pro by any stretch of the imagination. The movie in question is Godzilla (1998). I edited out the slapstick, to make it fairly watchable.

Comments

Former user wrote on 4/20/2018, 10:09 PM

Look into using Pan/Crop for resizing the video.

john_dennis wrote on 4/20/2018, 10:39 PM

With your problem video on the timeline, press the button to Save Snapshot to File as shown in this example:

Then use this button above the text box on this forum to upload the screenshot:

We'll be able to advise you when we know exactly what you have. It's probably really simple.

thomas-barnett wrote on 4/21/2018, 1:04 PM

Here is a screenshot. It isn't super egregious but you can tell the Pegasus from the TriStar logo is just a little bit stretched vertically.

john_dennis wrote on 4/21/2018, 2:20 PM

I suspect the original video had black bars top and bottom because of the theatrical aspect ratio (1920x800). The way I would solve this problem is to create a project at the 1920x800 aspect ratio, allow the picture to be distorted by turning OFF the Maintain Aspect Ratio switch and nest that project into a 1920x1080 project to render.

This is Howie Doit:

  

thomas-barnett wrote on 4/21/2018, 3:52 PM

Thank you so much Mr. Dennis. I was able to follow the steps you laid out, and the video is rendering now. From the preview window, it looks to be exactly correct. I really appreciate the help. Once I get it burned to a blu ray, I can subject my friends to watching the Matthew Broderick Godzilla movie, lol. Thanks again.

john_dennis wrote on 4/21/2018, 4:04 PM

You’re welcome.