Proper Image Dimensions

DJJP wrote on 3/5/2010, 1:39 PM

I am very new to Movie Maker. I'm using version 6.0. I have DV footage that I have captured from a camera. It is a teaching, and I want to overlay the Powerpoint slides at the appropriate points in the movie. I used Powerpoint to save all the slides as BMP images. The images are 960x720. I am just dropping these onto the Video Overlay track and stretching them out as necessary for the amount of time I want them to be. When I burn it to a DVD, though, and play it back, the image is too large for the screen and the edges are getting cut off.

I am rendering to an "MainConcept MPEG-2" format and using the "DVD NTSC" template. Here's the description:

Audio: 224 Kbps, 48,000 Hz, Layer 2
Video: 29.97 fps, 720x480
Use this setting to create an MPEG-2 file with an NTSC DVD-compliant video stream, and an MPEG layer 2 audio stream.

All the video looks good, and the image itself is crisp and clear; it is just cropped. I made no changes to the Event Pan/Crop settings. When I view it in preview window it all looks fine. But, once it is on a DVD and I take it to a DVD player and watch it on a TV, then the image is cropped (centered, but cropped on all edges).

I've tried resizing the images to 720x480, but that didn't help. Any thoughts as to what I need to do so the image doesn't crop?

Thanks in advance!
-- Paul

Comments

richard-amirault wrote on 3/5/2010, 3:26 PM

First thing after placing your photo on the timeline .. click on the EVENT PAN/CROP icon that is on the right side of your image (on the timeline) .. there are two icons there .. the Event Pan/Crop one is the topmost one. It looks like a box. When you put your mouse over it the words Event Pan/Crop will appear. Click on it.

In that box click on the down arrow in the PRESET window. The down arrow is next to the floppy disk icon. Choose 4:3 Standard TV aspect ratio.

What you now see is how your image will show in your project. You can put your cursor at the image on your timeline to see what changes you make .. as you make them. (you can move the Event Pan/Crop box to the side if necessary to place the cursor)

Now you can click on one of the corner boxes and drag the box in or out to show all or part of your image.

You might need to adjust the "Workspace" to make it eaiser to see.

Chienworks wrote on 3/5/2010, 7:57 PM

More generically, if you right-mouse-button click within the cropping frame you can choose "match output aspect". This will crop the image to match the frame no matter what project properties are currently in play.

Sonata wrote on 3/8/2010, 10:08 AM

It sounds to me like overscan is coming into play here.

On the computer it looks fine because there is no overscan issue when using the preview window.

On a standard 4:3 TV screen, be prepared to lose 5-10% around the edges, thus looking cropped.

Turn on the overscan guidelines when previewing your movie. It's the icon that looks like a box made up of dashes at the top of the preview window. The outermost guide is your "action safe" area and your inner guide is your "title safe" area. Most anything you have outside of the outermost guide will be cut off on a 4:3 TV screen.

DJJP wrote on 3/10/2010, 7:51 AM

Thank you to all who gave me some input. As it turns out, it *was* an overscan issue, as Sonata suggested. Once I turned on the guidelines, I could adjust my image so it layed inside the outermost guide. When I rendered then authored the DVD, it looked great! I now have a band at the top and bottom that is showing the video behind the Powerpoint slide, but it is small and I don't think it really makes it look bad.

Thanks again for your help! Once I found the proper size, I saved it as a template called "Powerpoint slides." Now, when I drop one in, it is easy to go to the pan/crop screen and with a few clicks get it sized correctly.

-- Paul