Help: Pan/crop--how to use same preset each time?

hackazoid wrote on 4/4/2012, 11:43 AM
Sporadic amateur user but don't recall this as an issue before so I'm forgetting something as I try a family project. Have V Pro 9.

Want to produce a widescreen video, don't need HD.

Using the pan/crop tool for motion on pics, but have to reselect the '16:9 widescreen' preset each time as it shows the 'default' each time. Can't find how/where to make the 16:9 come up each time for this project.

Have the Project properties set to NTSC DV Wide 720x480.

Appreciate any advice as have a couple hundred pics I've downsized for the project.

Thanks, Hack.

Comments

Frederic Baumann wrote on 4/4/2012, 1:45 PM
Hi,

I am afraid there is no way, because using the pan/crop tool simply means showing its settings in the FX pane (nothing more is created or applied to the event, unlike with video FX). When you click on its button for the first time, the pan/crop icon is black, and stays black until you apply a change to the pan/crop settings.

So, I unfortunately think it is normal that by default, it takes the proportions of the initial clip, because the default behaviour of pan/crop (even before you want to display its properties) is that it does not reshape any clip.

I think of 2 possible workarounds:

1) use the track motion instead: there you will be able to set the proportion once for ever, and you can keyframe the panning all along the track. If I understand your need correctly, it could be a solution

2) write a script that loops over all clips, and sets the pan/crop width and height.

Hope this helps,
Frederic - FBmn Software
Gary James wrote on 4/4/2012, 2:27 PM
The free Vegas Pro Utility Timeline Tools has a feature to set the Event Aspect Ratio for all, or selected Events on a track.


jerald wrote on 4/5/2012, 12:38 PM
No problem. It's easy.

Go to Options Menu, Select Preferences, go to the Editing Tab, Select the checkbox with label 'Automatically crop still images added to timeline.'

A convenience for images already on the timeline: Right-click on image in the pan/crop tool & select 'Match Output Aspect.' Much easier than drop-down preset selector (imho).
jerald wrote on 4/5/2012, 12:44 PM
Hi, Frederic,
Using track motion to zoom in will ALWAYS cause degrading of image quality.

Using track motion to zoom out (i.e. to shrink images to be smaller than the video frame) is ok.