Sonicboom,

I don't know if this will help but fyi, my cap videos are 352x240 res (vcd format). If I still can't get it, that's okay. I thank you very much for your time. I really appreciate it. Maybe on some other projects. Thanks again.

Thank you very much!

Hey Spidey, If this helps....

Start out by importing 2 clips on separate tracks into the timeline, both starting at the far left or 0 -- I'm assuming both clips and your project properties are at 352 x 240.

To show 2 clips side by side, go to the upper track, click on it, hit the l< button to move the cursor to the very beginning, and to the left of timeline hit the track motion button (2 rectangles) for the first track. At 352 x 240 the frame center will be 176 W. & 120 H. when the track motion dialog opens. You want to uee these figures for the center: 0 W. & 120 H. Don't change the size of the clip. Close the track motion dialog box to get it out of the way.

If you play back from the begining of the timeline now, you should see the upper clip shoved over to the left, half cut off, but the part you can see should be at the right proportion -- not squished or anything. And you should see the clip from the lower track at original size and position, just the left half of it covered up by the upper track.

Now go and click on the second, lower track in the timeline, again hit the l< button to move the cursor to the beginning, and click the track motion button to open the dialog. To move this clip over to the right half of your frame, you want to set the center to 352 for the width, & 120 height. Don't change the size of the clip.Close the dialog box and hit the play button - you should see the 2 clips, side by side in the preview window.

Both clips should be cut off -- you should see 1/2 of the picture from each clip -- but they should be there side by side.
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To go to a letterboxed effect with a 40 pixel black strip top and bottom...
Click on the upper clip in the 1st track of the timeline, hit the l< button to set the cursor to the beginning, and click the track motion button for this track. This time put these figures into the boxes on the left: for size use 236 wide & 160 height -- for center use 58 wide & 120 height. Close the dialog box.

Click on the lower or 2nd track, again hit the l< button, click the track motion button for this track, and enter these figures: for size use 236 wide & 160 height -- for center use 294 wide & 120 height. Close the dialog box & see what you've got when you hit play... You should see both clips playing side by side in a letterboxed frame, & you should see more of each clip.

To help fine tune the size of the clips & the letterbox strips:
1) for a 50 pixel black strip top & bottom: size = 206 w. x 140 h. - center = 73 w. x 120 h. and 279 w. x 120 h.

2) for a 30 pixel black strip: size = 264 w. x 180 h - center = 44 w. x 120 h. and 308 w. x 120 h.

That should get you started anyway...

As an option & to further finish it off you can adjust the individual clips by using the pan/crop settings. Click on the upper track, hit the l< button to set the cursor, set the zoom level of the timeline so you can see the end of the clip, then click the small, top icon at the end of the clip (it appears on the picture of the clip itself).

This should open up the pan/crop dialog... There's a row of icons on the left - only the top two (show properties & normal edit tool) should be depressed. Also on the left, the boxes for Maintain Aspect Ratio & Stretch to fill frame should both be checked. There's a number box directly under the word Center, and this is what you want to play with while watching your preview display. By raising and lowering this number, you should be able to watch the contents of the left clip in your preview window slide right and left -- if for example your clip showed a talking head, you could move it to the right, making up for the part of the clip that's been cut off. Close this dialog box and do the same for the 2nd, lower track.

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If you want to try it with 4 clips, sticking with the 352 x 240 project & original clip size...

Track 1 : size = 176 x 120, center = 88 x 60
Track 2 : size = 176 x 120, center = 264 x 60
Track 3 : size = 176 x 120, center = 88 x 180
Track 4 : size = 176 x 120, center = 264 x 180

Jetdv asked about screen or frame sizes...

There are a few different frame sizes commonly used, but they all more or less conform to the 4:3 ratio of a TV screen or the 16:9 ratio for widescreen. I should add that for widescreen lately, the frame size (the actual video) can vary a fair amount from 16:9, especially with DVDs.

Dealing just with NTSC...
Originally when TVs came out, they couldn't rely on the standards of the picture tubes, so they figured on broadcasting a signal that included a frame larger then any TV could then display. Today still there is a bit of the picture that gets cut off, both height & width, and how much varies from brand to brand, model to model. VV3 & other editors can display a safe area or grid, that gives you a visual marker of what parts of your frame are most likely to show up on every TV.

If you cut off the parts of the frame that are normally not displayed (the overscan), you get 640 x 480 interlaced. This is also one of the display sizes on the average PC monitor, & if you take a video clip at either 320 x 240 or 640 x 480, it will scale to fit the entire screen so it's pretty popular.

On the other hand, if you send a 640 x 480 picture out to a TV, you stand a decent chance of getting at the least black bars along the sides. With an ATI AIW for example, you should increase the screen width so part of the picture get's cut off to be safe if you're recording to tape.

Using 720 pixel width helps to take care of this problem, but on the downside, if you create an avi file or winmedia or whatever at that size, it will letterbox on most any PC monitor, so in the end you want to format your frame size to your project's intended destination.

RE: DVD's... There's strict specs for allowable frame size, but most of the movie DVD's I've seen use some version of an anomorphic screen setup. Basically what they do is take their full size video frame, whatever the dimensions, and squeeze it into a 720 x 480 box. The DVD then gives the player instructions as to what size to actually display it, most often including overscan in both directions. [play a movie DVD on your PC, & take a snapshot -> then open that snapshot in an image editor & you'll see the dimensions, even for a 4:3 fullscreen video, are not 720 x 480.]

Anyway, with apologies for going off topic, hope jetdv that this helps to explain a bit.