I am chilled, not upset... just asking a simple question.

I recently made a training video for the place I work. On my computer it looked great, filled the screen nicely. But unfortunately they're not going to be showing it on a computer, but on a TV. On every TV I've played it on it cuts off part of the video all around the sides... ya know, around 10%. So I had to zoom out 10% and re-render it. Now it works just fine.

I know for a fact that I am losing some of my video. I did a test. Burned two test videos to a DVD of the same video, but one was zoomed out 10%. The left and right sides were both cut off on the untouched video. I'm using the widescreen option in my camera, so the top and bottom are ok. But it's the edges I'm worried about.

I know that if I watch the DVDs on my computer they'll display ok, but the question wasn't about playing them on a computer but on a TV. The computer isn't in the living room, the TV is.

It sounds to me like I shouldn't worry about it. That losing a little bit of your video is common, and "fixing it" by zooming out will only degrade the overall quality. I can live with that.

Your'e not getting it.

The point I was making about playing your videos on a computer was to point out the fact that you are not <really> losing anything.

Yes... when you look at the entire video signal.. and how it gets displayed on TV's, some will display more of it than others. That is a fact of life.

Therefore... we must live within the rules. The rules say that we should keep everything important in a video within the SAFE AREAS.

Losing information? That should not happen. If you place valueable information in the 10% or so of the dipslay area that could be lost... then that can only happen because you have not played by the rules.

Was this video that you are talking about containing stuff that you added (like titles/graphics... other things)? If so then you must make certain that critical parts of the information you add stick within the safe areas. It sounds like you didn't do that.

There is a button on the preview monitor that adds safe area display so that you can keep within the rules. Check it out.

The other VERY IMPORTANT thing (stress added... as it is very very important) is that you need to preview your work on a TV - if that is going to be where it will end up. Do you have a way to preview your work via an attached TV? If you don't... then you really must fix that.. as otherwise you will continue to end up with surprises.

Take this information... learn from it... and your next project will be better for it.

It's just something to be aware of when shooting - make sure important action does not occur near the edge of frame, then you won't have to spend time resizing. Some camera viewfinders have a dotted line to help with this.

Liam, I am trying to be a good "student" but I hardly appreciate your tone. When I'm instructing someone on something I know more about I like to be a little more instructive and a little less condescending.

Of course I realize I'm not actually losing the video in the 10% at the edge of the screen, you misunderstood what I meant by "losing". I was mearly stating that 99% of the people who view my videos (my family, come on, I'm making christmas videos here) are not going to see part of the video. I realize that information is still in tact, just not visible.

I will keep the safe areas in mind when video taping from now on. Now that I know about not being able to see (notice how I didn't say "losing"?) the very edges.

Anything I add in post production I keep within the safe area. Yes I know about those dotted lines at 10 and 20 percent. Yes, I know you can turn them on and off. "It sounds like you didn't do that." When did I ever mention putting titles into my videos where you'd be able to extract this assumption?

An external monitor? Yeah I've got a 13 inch television I could probably hook up, but come on, I'm making family videos and stuff like that. This latest video is my brother-in-law singing and playing his guitar last night at a bar. I'm not doing professional stuff here, if I were I'd be using an external monitor.

You of course never answered my simple question I started off with, which was: When it comes to the time it takes a video to render, is there a differnece between using pan/crop or track motion? You need not assume anything about my techniques or what I am doing, it's just a simple technical question. If you don't know, just say "I don't know." That's what I say when I don't know the answer to a question. I'm guessing the answer will be NO because it wouldn't make sense that one would affect the render time differently than the other, but again, I don't know.

SonicClang

Sorry if my reponse was upsetting for you. It is difficult to judge "tone" from anyones post and get it accurate. I took your constant references back to losing stuff to mean that you did not understand why this was happening and felt "cheated" that it wasn't working a particular way (the way it looks like on your computer).

I could see from other posts you have made on the subject (to do with Safe Areas) that you could not accept that you had to keep things within the safe areas. You also posted above that you had made training videos.

Quote As for keeping important items in the center of the screen... that doesn't really work for this situation so I naturally assumed that you were adding stuff that was coming from somewhere else (and I referred to Titles/Graphics - meaning it could be other stuff). In those posts you even said as much, and I quote The video is made up mostly of screenshots of a program I made for controlling machinery and I absolutely need the person watching to see the entire screen

Sorry I got that wrong. Although... that work doesn't sound like Christmas videos to me and would point to exactly the thing I was refering to (bringing in stuff from other places (not video) and not realizing the impact of the safe areas).

You say it is too much trouble for you to hook up a TV to the PC... as this is just home movies... and yet you get upset when things don't loolk right on a TV and ask for help to fix things.

You also question my approach where I didn't actually answer you specific question.

I try to look outside the question that is posed - as often (especially to those new to video editing) you can find (like I think we did) the question is based upon a misunderstanding.

In this case the issue with track motion / pan crop was actually secondary to the whole reason WHY you felt you had to do that.

Being a good teacher is often a matter of questioning - the question.

Being a good student... is being able to accept that someone who has more experience may be able to help more by not actually answering the direct question that was asked.

Are you saying you gained NO new information whatsoever from my posts?

If so... then please accept my humble appologies for attempting to help you with the bigger issues.

The first question if I understand you correctly is our old frienbd the over/under scan issue. When viewed on a computer you see the whole frame. When viewed on a TV the outer margin is 'cut-off'. This has to do with how TV works. All Tconsumer grade TV's overscan to avoid showing garbage on screen. If you have a "professional" monitor you'd see underscan or the whole thing which will include noise at the top or bottom.

While I haven't done any detailed tests it seems there is little difference between using pan/crop and track motion relative to how long it takes to render.

Thank you billy boy, that perfectly answered my question.

As for Liam Vegas: The situation with the training video was this - I had never burned a video I made to a DVD until after I made this video. Therefore, keeping things in the middle of the screen wasn't an option because the video had already been made. Hence the "this doesn't apply here" remark. For this training video I did end up just zooming out 10% because I had already deleted all my source files. Yes, a mistake I have learned from. For future videos I'll just make sure I size pictures down so they're not cut off.

Did I learn anything from your post? Not really, I already knew all the stuff you referred to. This was a case in which I really just wanted to know if there was a technical different between pan/crop and track motion and how they affect the render time.

Have I learned from other posts I've read of yours? Yes I have. I do a lot more reading of posts than I do posting.

For the record, when I posted my original question I was not upset about a thing in the world. I was mearly wondering about something so I posted.

So everything is cool. Sorry my responses to these questions were not what you were looking for.

Next time... be careful when you ask Anyone have any suggestions? as that open-eneded question often results in someone trying to be a little more helpful than you might like.