Mothers Day dilemma! Capturing aspect ratio difficulties

windsock · Post by **windsock** » Fri May 11, 2007 8:58 am

Hi, please forgive me if this is a very lame question but I¡¦m totally new to video editing. I have searched through dozens of threads on the forum and no one appears to be having my specific problem, which makes me think that it¡¦s probably very straightforward.

I have been trying to use Video Studio 11 for the past few days. In a couple of hours I successfully made a short vid using mpegs from my Olympus 720Mu. I was wrapped so I thought I¡¦d make my Wife a Mothers Day video using mini DV footage we've taken on a Panasonic 3CCD NV-GS70 Video camera. I think that I¡¦m sunk with regard to the present as I¡¦ve spent the most of today stuck on trying to make the aspect ratio of the captured footage look right. Time's ticking away.

I won¡¦t even try to describe it in tech. terms, I only say that what I get when I capture appears to be widescreen and the picture is squashed. The quality and the sound are fine and i can edit it. I have tried every dialogue box I have found and followed every description on the subject but the more I do the more confused I become!

I¡¦m not sure how to list my settings but I am recording using Mpeg2, PAL, Video format is 720x576. Sorry if this isn¡¦t enough info but I¡¦m afraid I just don¡¦t know which ones I need to advise. I've tried to mmake sure that all dialogues talk of consistent values but something must be wrong. I had hoped that this programme would have had more presets and that you wouldn't need to tick every box. Having said that, the editing part is just what I am after.

I¡¦d really appreciate it if someone could provide a really simple step by step description as to what I would need to do to make it look right.
I read somewhere that it wont look right on the preview because of conflicts with the way video has been set up from the start, but it looks the same when I save it as an mpeg and play it back. It¡¦s disappointing for me as I thought this programme might be my saviour after years of attempting video editing with Premier (too hard) and windows movie maker (too basic) and just giving up.

Any help would be much appreciated. Plan B for the Mothers day present is on the cards for tomorrow. I just need to think of one...

BrianCee · Post by **BrianCee** » Fri May 11, 2007 9:54 am

If it looks widescreen but squashed it sounds a bit as though you have 16:9 set in your project properties. Try going "File >> Project Properties" and in the new dialogue box which opens check the properties in the box at the very bottom - if it says "(DVD-PAL) 16:9" at the bottom then click on the 'Edit' button - in the new window click on the 'General' tab at the top and change the 'Display Aspect Ration' to 4:3 - click OK - OK and try your video.

Another aid is to get VideoStudio to ask you if you want to match your project properties to your video properties so that the display is correct - - To do that go to "File >> Preferences" in the dialogue window under the 'General' tab about 1/4 way down put a tick in the box against "Show message when inserting first video clip into the timeline" - click OK. Now when you drag and drop a video from the library to the timeline if the properties do not match a dialogue box pops up asking if you want to change the properties - saying yes to that usually restores the correct picture format in the preview window

windsock · Post by **windsock** » Fri May 11, 2007 12:58 pm

Thanks Brian, i've done both of those and the existing clips I have do not change. They all span from edge to edge of the preview pane. The picture would take up half of the actual depth of the pane and the other half is divided into a top half and bottom half both which both are black.

Would I need to re-capture video to make this work or should it convert the vidcaps I already have?

If only there were a "resize to fit" type o' button...

The last thing I need to is to show the Wife footage that makes everyone look shorter and fatter. She's not but I'm sure you know what I mean.

I'm just surprised that softwear freshly loaded first time up doesn't capture standard miniDV tapes without a myriad of check boxes. I'm plugging the fire wire cable directly into the camera and the computer and programme don't have any problem finding it. Both the sound and the picture are perfect except for the flattened nature.

Is 720 x 576 the standard size for miniDV or should I be using something else?

cheers
Andrew

Black Lab · Post by **Black Lab** » Fri May 11, 2007 1:10 pm

If only there were a "resize to fit" type o' button...

With your clip selected (so you are in Clip mode) click on the Attribute tab. Check the Distort Clip box. Now right click on your clip in the Preview Window and choose Fit to Screen. Does that fix it? If not, try one of the other options when you right click.

windsock · Post by **windsock** » Fri May 11, 2007 1:58 pm

Jeff! Yes it does if after i right click and select "keep aspect ratio". Only problem is that it reverts to the squash if i click back on the video tab. I did manage to get it to stay at the true A.R. by clicking back on the effet tab, but the moment I click back on Edit it reverts to wide again. Is there a save setting type of command somewhere?

Is there some way of doing a batch convert for all these? It would be very tedious having to do it to every clip.

Fantastic though, thanks for the tip. I hope this is the answer.

Black Lab · Post by **Black Lab** » Fri May 11, 2007 2:25 pm

If you go to the Video tab, while still in Clip mode, then yes it will still look squashed. But when switched over to Project mode it should look ok.

And no, I don't believe there is a way to do this by batch, only by clip.

windsock · Post by **windsock** » Sat May 12, 2007 12:24 am

Thanks very much for the help, it's really appreciated.