Set project properties to crop size?

Rednroll wrote on 7/12/2019, 8:38 AM

Hi, I shot a quick video using my mobile phone which was recorded at 720x1280 in size. It was intended for online viewing for a product review, where I always dislike those videos where people use their phones recording in portrait view and then post the video online where you watch it and it seems like 80% of the screen is side black bars. I didn't want to be "that guy".

I imported the video into Vegas and used the video event crop tool to trim the view into a square picture aspect ratio I was after. I rendered it where what I saw was that I now had a square video now surrounded by black bars on the top and bottom since my project properties were set in 720x1280, not quite what I was after but I understood why this happened. Therefore I changed by project property settings to 720x720 and unchecked "Maintain aspect ratio" on the clip properties and then rendered as 720x720, all in an effort to get a full screen view and not have my video distorted.

I achieved what I was after, but through the process I was trying to figure out if there was a way to set my project properties to the size of my cropped video clip where I could not figure out how to determine what the actual size was of my cropped video image. The reason it worked for me was because I knew the video started at 720x1280 and I just cropped the top and bottom sections of the video out and it was close to being square in size but I didn't know what the actual cropped size of the video was, so I'm certain there was some stretched distortions, just not enough to make a difference for the intended purpose of this video.

How would you do this to ensure you're eliminating introducing stretch distortions?

How do you determine the actual video clip's aspect ratio once you crop it?
I originally started by using the Video Track's FX insert and used the crop FX to do this task. Can this aspect ratio be determined when you use the Track FX crop?

I'm familiar with photoshop where if I crop an image, I select "Image size" in photoshop and it shows me the image's current pixel aspect ratio. I guess I'm looking for something similar in Vegas so I can re-adjust my project properties and render settings to that size in an effort to get a full screen video with no stretch distortions but don't know where to look in Vegas to get that information.

Comments

Marco. wrote on 7/12/2019, 11:14 AM

Generally in Vegas Pro the frame size set in the project properties does not affect the rendering. You can have Pan/Crop being affected by the project frame aspect ratio by selecting "Match output aspect" in Pan/Crop.

The project property option "Adjust source media to better match project or render settings" only is used if there is up to 4 % abberation.

Vegas Pro automatically reads and uses the media's aspect ratio. Thus in the end it is all about using proper render settings and carefully adjusting the Pan/Crop settings.
You could use a 1920 x 1080 source clip in a 4000 x 8 project frame size and still render a proper 1000 x 1000 video without black bars and without distortion if you cropped it via Pan/Crop if you did not select to match the source or output aspect.

Former user wrote on 7/12/2019, 11:18 AM

https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/2-35-1-aspect-ratio-crops-sides--116155/#ca721795

john_dennis wrote on 7/12/2019, 11:29 AM

@Rednroll

"How do you determine the actual video clip's aspect ratio once you crop it?"

Study this epic I prepared on my oldest, slowest machine. There's a pony in there somewhere.

Marco. wrote on 7/12/2019, 11:48 AM

John_Dennis, all you need to do is unchecking "Stretch video to adjust output frame size" in the render options. No need to adjust the project frame size.

john_dennis wrote on 7/12/2019, 12:16 PM

Thanks Marco. Next time, I'll leave my suspenders at home.

Rednroll wrote on 7/12/2019, 8:31 PM

Generally in Vegas Pro the frame size set in the project properties does not affect the rendering. You can have Pan/Crop being affected by the project frame aspect ratio by selecting "Match output aspect" in Pan/Crop.

The project property option "Adjust source media to better match project or render settings" only is used if there is up to 4 % abberation.

Vegas Pro automatically reads and uses the media's aspect ratio. Thus in the end it is all about using proper render settings and carefully adjusting the Pan/Crop settings.
You could use a 1920 x 1080 source clip in a 4000 x 8 project frame size and still render a proper 1000 x 1000 video without black bars and without distortion if you cropped it via Pan/Crop if you did not select to match the source or output aspect.

Yeah, but wouldn't the project properties impact what I'm seeing being displayed in the Vegas preview window? I likely messed up in my original description but that was the reason I was adjusting the project settings, so while I was editing, what I was seeing in the preview window in Vegas should be similar to what I I should expect to see once I rendered if the project and render settings were set at the same aspect ratios.

Rednroll wrote on 7/12/2019, 9:12 PM

@Rednroll

"How do you determine the actual video clip's aspect ratio once you crop it?"

Study this epic I prepared on my oldest, slowest machine. There's a pony in there somewhere.

Perfect! Thank you John!

I was able to find the hidden pony I was searching for. I had to click on the setting icon in the crop tool to make those Width/Height values be exposed that you have shown in your video. Now I understand how much I crushed my rendered video. My crop was actually set at 720x879...so yeah, I likely crushed the height some when I rendered at 720x720. I'm the only who will notice it for my posted Amazon product review but this will definitely help me in the future.

 

A similar newby question from an audio guy who is more familiar working in Photoshop when it comes to images. Why does the crop tool have an "F" in the middle of it? My thought was so you could get a visual for how much you were stretching/distorting an image but it would seem to me that a "O" or circle would work better for that.

Former user wrote on 7/12/2019, 9:19 PM

Why does the crop tool have an "F" in the middle of it?

 

I always thought it was there so you could tell if the frame had been flipped or rotated. (F for Flip or Frame)

Marco. wrote on 7/13/2019, 3:16 AM

"Yeah, but wouldn't the project properties impact what I'm seeing being displayed in the Vegas preview window?"

Yes, it does. That's what this part of project properties is meant for: Setting the base for the preview properties (and also for Generated Media and snapshots).

"…  so while I was editing, what I was seeing in the preview window in Vegas should be similar to what I I should expect to see once I rendered …"

There are two different philosophies in using this part of the project settings. One is to set it to match the source media and one is to set it to match the render settings.
I think most part of the users set it to match the source media (I do, too) because this allows for the best quality checking and the best playback performance. Also in many or most cases at least the proportions of input and output wouldn't change.

So if you decide to set the project properties to match the render/output settings to better fit your workflow, that's fine. All you should be aware of is what this would affect (preview, generated media, snapshots) and what this would not affect (output). In your case maybe it's the better way to go.

Musicvid wrote on 7/13/2019, 7:44 PM

@Rednroll

Handbrake has been rumored to be more intuititive about autorotating and formatting cellphone video, it reads the file flags.