Wonky Verticals - Can I fix them in VS10+ ?

[wywso0]

I have imported some old video on to the PC to edit in VS10+ (it's captured OK). But, looking at in detail I see that the camera was not held level when the video was shot. It's a few degrees off, but there are several verticals in the shots (trees, columns) and it's quite obvious. After a while it gets distracting and annoying.

Within VS10+, is it possible to rotate the the picture a few degrees to bring things more or less back into line? If this meant that I'd have to zoom in slightly so that there wouldn't be black wedges where I'd done the rotating, that wouldn't be a problem since I want to use the zoom function on much of this video anyway.

Grateful for your help
Bill S

[Ron P.]

Hi Bill,

Unfortunately VS only allows rotating at 90 deg intervals. What you might do is download the free trial of MSP8 http://www.ulead.com/msp/trial.htm. It allows Moving Paths, that you can rotate at whatever degree you want. You could use the free trial to correct your video clip.

Ron P.

[Terry Stetler]

If you're very careful, and use 5% grid lines for alignment, you can use the distortion effect to rotate a clip a few degrees;



Just keep the edge of the frame outside the action safe margin box. On 90% of TV's anything outside this box will not show up.

http://digitalvideo.8m.net/vsrotate.wmv (3 mb)

[wywso0]

Terry,

Thanks. I see what you mean and it does improve things a lot. Two questions though:

I have saved the "distorted" file under a new name (I'll use the term "distorted" to mean after I have done my best to fix the verticals). But when I move out of the attribute tab area where I make the distortion, the picture reverts back to the undistorted picture. How can I make the distorted picture the one I now work on for future edits?

Also, I'd like to zoom in a bit on the central part of the frame - this would also fix any blank areas around the edge of the distorted frame. I am sure this can be done, but I can't find a zoom filter. Am I looking in the wrong place?

Thanks for your help - VS is an impressive piece of software but takes a bit of learning.

Regards,

Bill S

[Ken Berry]

I have never used the distort feature in this way, but at a guess, I would say that you can save the edit by clicking on Clip > Save Trimmed Video. That should then save your work and send a new file to the Library pane. If so, I would then delete the edited clip in the timeline, and drag and drop the new saved file in its place.

As for (panning and) zooming, trying Filters > Zoom Motion.

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi Bill

The distorted clip will show in the ‘project mode’
When viewing in ‘clip mode’ you should see the original clip without distortion.

You can use the distort function to increase the size of the clip, effectively zooming in a bit to loose the edges (click the middle of the clip, drag the clip to one side) this will allow access to the distort points allowing you to increase size.

When complete Share Create Video file will produce a copy for the future.

Trevor