Handbrake has presets to deal with this automatically.

The most playable solutions involve a landscape screen ratio with sidebars.

Ok, I went back to check my video info. The original footage is 1080 x 1920. I am now running Pro 17. So, when I render, what template should I use? Footage I rendered at 2160 x 3840 played fine on my computer, but the view on a mobile phone is the size of a postage stamp. I rendered that footage from Pro 16. The templates in Pro 17 look different to me. Maybe I'm dense, but could use some help on this. I can run the footage through Handbrake, but I'm guessing that, unless I'm going to change frame rate or container type, nothing will change.

Advice appreciated.

DelCallo

ok, I ran one of my files through Handbrake. Handbrake automatically detected a file size of 1920 x 1080, and the output is flipped from portrait mode to landscape mode. It remains so when I import to Pro 17. I went back to Handbrake to see if I could switch the dimensions, but Handbrake will not allow the second number to exceek 1080. So, its back to the drawing board for me.

Help if you can.

Thanks.

DelCallo

Go into the magix avc template for internet 1080p (since your source videos are 1080p), click customize template, then under frame size, custom frame size, and type in your own numbers there to set it to portrait mode. you can then click the little disk icon to save that template for future use.

If I import that flipped handbrake video, bring it to the timeline, answer yes to the question whether i want to use that footage's attributes as settings for the project, then go to the magix avc template you mention, the frame sizes are greyed out and cannot be changed. Am I misunderstanding you? If I open a project set the sizes first and import the flipped video, it sill comes in flipped and appears to be cropped along the top edge. Should I start over with the original footage shot in portrait but showing 1080 x 1920 frame dimensions?

I appreciate your help.

Thanks.

Caruso

So, I tried the original footage, set my sizes (1920 x 1080) before importing the footage, answered no to the apply settings to project question, then rendered a small bit of footage using the template you suggest. The settings match my footage, so no need to customize. The rendered footage, when played back on my computer are initially small, but can be enlarged by clicking the icon at lower right. When I upload to google drive or google photos and try viewing on my smartphone, the image is the size of a postage stamp, and there is no way to enlarge to full screen.

I can, of course, just upload the raw footage from my smartphone, but, what fun is that. No titles, other text, crossfades, etc.

Maybe I should be seeking a solution to this problem from Google. Perhpas this has nothing at all to do with Vegas Pro.

Let me know if you can think of anything else, and thanks for the help.

Caruso

if your original video is 1080x1920 why are you using 1920x1080 as your video properties? You will have black encoded boarders and you said you don't want that. You want to view your video on a mobile phone in portrait mode and see a full screen video without black boarders.

Try doing nothing at all, but import your 1080x1920 video, click yes on automatic project properties which gives you 1080x1920 properties, then render at 1080x1920. I don't know why you would get wide black borders anywhere if you do that which i'm guessing is making your video look like a postage stamp

Upload a short original file from your Pixel 2 to Drive or Dropbox.

Nothing is what I did from the beginning, what I have done with Vegas since version 2.0. The result was fine, as always, when viewed on my PC screen. Back in the day, I would have loaded the footage (avi format in those days) to Dropbox and share a link with my family. These days, my children are all into Google, "Gramps! Look, you don't have to do all that uploading, just shoot the video, go to Google Photos, and your video/photo is there."

Of course, it is there but without any editing, which is where I have my real fun. Hence, even though smartphone video isn't the best quality, it is worth editing to me, especially when the subject matter involves my family. So, I edited this footage and uploaded it manually to Google Photos, Before distributing it, I decided to test it to see how would look when viewed on a smartphone (as I know my children will view it). That's when I found this problem with the postage stamp image and started searching for options that might

FWIW, I checked on a google forum, and there is a thread ongoing since 2018 about this problem. I read that it was not always this way, and apparently, the problem started with some sort of upgrade by Google a couple years ago. One poster stated that if one downloads the footage, it will play fine. I have yet to try, but will.

In summary, unless someone else here is editing smartphone footage and uploading to Google Photos and playing back successfully, I have to assume that, until Google addresses this problem, what I have is what I have.

Again, I thank everyone for their attempts to help me with this problem.

Caruso

Don't use Google Photos, but instead use Google Drive to share your video with your family. They give you 15GB for free, and you can get as much as 2TB for $10 a month. I use it regularly. It will take any video you upload and display it in a youtube-like preview player, so they don't even have to download it to watch it, but they also will have the option to download it locally to their machine to watch it later.

Also, definitely make sure your project settings are the same as your render settings. If you want a 1080x1920 output file, you want the project and render settings to both match that.

 

In summary, unless someone else here is editing smartphone footage and uploading to Google Photos and playing back successfully, I have to assume that, until Google addresses this problem, what I have is what I have.

Again, I thank everyone for their attempts to help me with this problem.

Caruso

I downloaded a portrait orientated 1080x1920 video from youtube, uploaded that to google photos, then re-encoded in vegas and also uploaded. Original youtube video and vegaspro17 encoded videos play correctly without black borders in google photos.

VP encoded example at google photos https://photos.app.goo.gl/bfrvdhobGMNsVE2R6

Don't use Google Photos, but instead use Google Drive to share your video with your family. They give you 15GB for free, and you can get as much as 2TB for $10 a month. I use it regularly. It will take any video you upload and display it in a youtube-like preview player, so they don't even have to download it to watch it, but they also will have the option to download it locally to their machine to watch it later.

Also, definitely make sure your project settings are the same as your render settings. If you want a 1080x1920 output file, you want the project and render settings to both match that.

Thanks for the reply, but I have already tried Google Drive. Same result.

 

In summary, unless someone else here is editing smartphone footage and uploading to Google Photos and playing back successfully, I have to assume that, until Google addresses this problem, what I have is what I have.

Again, I thank everyone for their attempts to help me with this problem.

Caruso

I downloaded a portrait orientated 1080x1920 video from youtube, uploaded that to google photos, then re-encoded in vegas and also uploaded. Original youtube video and vegaspro17 encoded videos play correctly without black borders in google photos.

VP encoded example at google photos https://photos.app.goo.gl/bfrvdhobGMNsVE2R6

 

On what are you viewing, smartphone or a computer? My footage from Google Photos displays in the same manner as the original files played from my computer, albeit I have to click the icon at lower right to enlarge to full screen. The problem for me arises when I display them from Google Photos on my smartphone which is how I know my children will view them.

I'm not challenging your account, only wish I could discover how to obtain the same result for my footage. For the time being, I have uploaded my footage to Dropbox, will apologize to my family and request that they also download to a computer to watch the footage. All those Google posters cannot be as ignorant as I. Something is wrong, but I appreciate your response.

DelCallo

Imho, this is a known bug. Vegas Pro does not add the needed portrait metadata into the rendered file. Portrait output only works as long as you don't start turning the display – what actually happens most of the time when using smartphones.

As a workaround you could use FFmpeg to add this metadata which works without re-encoding (it's a muxing only process).
I did not yet test but probably you could also use Voucoder as Vegas renderer to directly output a correct file. In the Voucoder codec settings you can add the metadata needed.

Edit:
Just tested Vocouder, but there seems to be a bug in it which pretends the metadata to be set. Anyway, muxing with FFmpeg works.

are you viewing, smartphone or a computer? My footage from Google Photos displays in the same manner as the original files played from my computer, albeit I have to click the icon at lower right to enlarge to full screen. The problem for me arises when I display them from Google Photos on my smartphone which is how I know my children will view them.

Hi, I was looking on my computer, but mainly concentrating on the video. I determined it was actually 1080x1920 & no encoded black bars. The poster after has said there is a bug with vegas and what you're experiencing is normal. unrelated to resolution but because of metadata. I had a look on my android galaxy phone, but it still looks fine, this is video playing using google photos

Just as an aside, and to make things more confusing. I shared the wrong link, that was the original YT video I uploaded, not the vegas pro re-encoded version, so just to correct that mistake. This is the VP17 version uploaded to google photos, and the screen shot of my mobile phone is of the same link https://photos.app.goo.gl/qPv9dRXbfN2bmyrW8

You are right to argue it doesn't work, because apparently it shouldn't and you're right

This video is 9:16 not 16:9 and it is still missing the rotation metadata. A correct video file would be regular 16:9 with 90° rotation metadata to correctly work in smartphones.

Imho, this is a known bug. Vegas Pro does not add the needed portrait metadata into the rendered file. Portrait output only works as long as you don't start turning the display – what actually happens most of the time when using smartphones.

As a workaround you could use FFmpeg to add this metadata which works without re-encoding (it's a muxing only process).
I did not yet test but probably you could also use Voucoder as Vegas renderer to directly output a correct file. In the Voucoder codec settings you can add the metadata needed.

Edit:
Just tested Vocouder, but there seems to be a bug in it which pretends the metadata to be set. Anyway, muxing with FFmpeg works.

I will look into FFmpeg. Is it similar to Handbrake in that you process the video through it? Would be a godsend for me. Thanks.

BTW, I uploaded my footage to Dropbox. Videos are much quicker to play, but still sized as postage stamps on a smartphone, so the problem is not, as I reported earlier, a Google Photo problem.

DelCallo

If you have FFmpeg installed I could share a batch file to process the video. Then you'd only have to drag'n'drop the clip onto that batch file. It may be this particular batch file only works properly for MP4 H.264.

Other than Handbrake this FFmpeg batch file would not re-encode your video but only re-mux the streams while adding the missing metadata to the wrapper. So it's quicker than Handbrake and it does not touch the quality in any way.

This video is 9:16 not 16:9 and it is still missing the rotation metadata. A correct video file would be regular 16:9 with 90° rotation metadata to correctly work in smartphones.

I don't know what you mean, and I don't even know the actual problem is now. can you show what his actual problem is, like a screen grab from a phone or better describing the problem then 'like a postage stamp'. He refuses to post any pictures, any screengrabs or video, any exif or mediainfo. Just schmucks like me trying to help him and apparently having no idea what he's talking about. he replys to you, but ignores me when I went to great effort to help.

He's been talking about portrait videos not displaying on mobile phones. that is 9:16 videos, not showing correctly when a phone is in 9:16 orientation. not 16:9 video. OR AM I TAKING CRAZY PILLS

You are not taking crazy pills, and I am most appreciative to all who have added to this thread in an attempt t help me solve my problem which is simply as follows:

My Pixel 2 has a viewing area of roughly 2 5/8" x 5". Video footage shot on the phone, auto-uploaded to Google Photos plays back at that dimension. Once I use Vegas Pro to add text, make cuts, add crossfades, etc., and render it (I have tried several templates, the correct one is the Magix AVC/AAC MP4 - Internet HD 1080p 29.97 fps I believe). My footage properties viewed by right clicking the file name and clicking Properties in Windows port as 1920 x 1080. I have built projects using the default 1080 x 1920 that Vegas Pro sees when I import the footage, and I have built projects setting the dimensions to 1920 x 1080, then clicking "no" when Vegas asks if I want to use the footage properties for the project.

Renders all display on my PC in a way that I expect, video in the center of the screen that fills the screen from top to bottom, but has black bars on each side. When I upload that footage to Google Play, Google Drive, or Dropbox and view it on my smartphone, the image is centered and measures only 7/8" x 1 3/8" surrounded with black. If I rotate the phone to landscape, the image expands in all directions such that it reaches the top and bottom of the screen with black bars on the side. Maybe that's the best I am going to do. I hope this helps, and, when I get home this evening, I will find some footage where my grandchild is turned away from the camera and upload that footage to Google Drive and post a link.

I apologize if my responses (or lack of same) got under your skin. It was not intentional, and I apologize.

Thanks for trying to help.

DelCallo

Go into the magix avc template for internet 1080p (since your source videos are 1080p), click customize template, then under frame size, custom frame size, and type in your own numbers there to set it to portrait mode. you can then click the little disk icon to save that template for future use.

In my opinion and the more experience I get working with video files in Vegas, having to do these steps for rendering a video is very frustrating.

What I'm getting at is that when I import a video, Vegas will ask me to adjust my project settings to match the imported video file, where I typically always select yes.

However, when it comes time to render after I've made any edits then I need to go back and figure out what my actual video dimensions were, and then further go in and edit the render template to then match either my project settings or my source video file dimensions where at that point they are typically the same if your original video is coming from the same source and my intent is to maintain quality and the original footage aspect ratio.

There really needs to be a way to make this easier for novice users for when we export the video, just like there there is an easy way present when we import the video. Maybe a check box on the render as GUI which says "Adjust Template settings to match project settings or source video"? and then the template gets updated with that information which Vegas already asked me for when I imported the video into my project.

I dunno, I'm just a dumb audio guy trying to fudge his way through some of these video technical hoops, where @DelCallo's experience with all this just seems all too common and familiar to me.

I do these similar tasks with other lesser non pro apps, and it's much more simpler. Just this past week, I captured some video on my phone shot in portrait mode. The only things I needed to do to that video was trim off some of the tail, and brighten it some because the lighting was not ideal. I imported it into VP17 and for some odd reason Vegas automatically put it in landscape mode, although I shot it in portrait mode, and when I viewed it on my phone it displayed correctly in portrait mode. So the 1st step I had to do was use the pan/crop tool to rotate the video so it displayed correctly within the VP17 preview window. Then on export it was me having to muck around in adjusting the template settings. It took me 2hours to do in Vegas some simple tasks I could have done on my Android phone in 5 minutes using a free app call YouCut - Video Editor. I thought I was doing myself a favor using the "Pro" app instead, and wow did I feel dumb for making that decision by the time I finished.

Download and play this video on your Pixel 2. If it plays as you expect, I'll 'splane how I did it.