Side by Side Comparison Video - How To?

dalemccl · Post by **dalemccl** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 2:08 am

I see videos on You Tube and similar sites where someone compares two camcorders by shooting the same scene with each and then placing the clips side-by-side, with one taking up the left half of the screen and the other the right half. Or one on the top and the other on the bottom.

Can this be done in X2? I thought maybe putting one camcorder's clip in the main video track and the other in the overlay track, then applying a mask to the overlay track would do it. However, I find various shapes of masks in X2, but not one that covers just the left or right side of the screen, or just the top or bottom.

Black Lab · Post by **Black Lab** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 2:54 am

Put each on an overlay track then you can move them and resize them as needed.

At the end of this video (at the 2:20 mark) is an example of just that. All three videos were on separate overlay tracks and resized to fit.

dalemccl · Post by **dalemccl** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 3:29 am

Black Lab wrote:Put each on an overlay track then you can move them and resize them as needed.

At the end of this video (at the 2:20 mark) is an example of just that. All three videos were on separate overlay tracks and resized to fit.

Thanks, Jeff. I just tried it with one clip in overlay track #1 and the other in overlay track #2. But I ran into a problem. I resized the clip in overlay #1 by grabbing the middle sizing handle on the right-hand side and dragging it toward the left so the clip occupied the left half of the screen (covering the left half of the other clip). That gave me side-by-side clips with each occupying half the screen. But the aspect ratio on the left half (the one I resized) was distorted and people looked tall and skinny. I right clicked on the distorted clip and saw a menu item for "maintain aspect ratio". When I clicked on that, the aspect ratio was restored, but the left clip now covered up the left 3/4 of the other clip, rather than half of it so now one clip took up 3/4 the screen and the other took up 1/4.

I looked at your video starting at 2:20 and the aspect ratios looked right in each of the three clips, so I must be doing it wrong. How do you do it without distorting the aspect ratios?

Black Lab · Post by **Black Lab** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 3:53 am

Resize it by dragging from a corner. That maintains the aspect ratio.

dalemccl · Post by **dalemccl** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 4:21 am

Sorry, I may not have explained very well what I wanted to do. I want each half of the screen (left and right) to show a different clip. The left half will show the left half of one clip and the right half will show the right half of the other clip. That is, only half of each clip will be visible.

Dragging the overlay clip by the corner does maintain the aspect ratio, but then it no longer covers the full half of the screen. To maintain the aspect ratio, when dragging the corner to where the clip is half the original width, it has to be half the original height too. So basically it occupies 1/4 the screen instead of 1/2 like I was trying to do.

After some further experimenting, I was able to do what I want. I put one clip in the video track and the other in an overlay track. Then I used the "chroma key" drop-down in the "attributes" tab of the overlay clip. Had to play around with the height, width, and transparency settings, but finally got it.

Thanks for helping, and I'm sorry I didn't explain better what I wanted to accomplish.

mitchell65 · Post by **mitchell65** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 11:26 am

I think I have found an easier way to do this:
Import the first clip into the 1st Overlay track. Right click the image in the preview window and choose "Fit to window". In the preview window this clip will have a green handle and a yellow handle at each corner . If you want the left half of this clip to show then grab the right hand top GREEN handle and drag it horizintally to halfway along the top of the clip. Then grab the bottom rt hand green handle and drag to the left until it is square with the top handle. You have virtually "cropped the clip" You should now see just the left half of the clip in the preview window. Import your second clip into the second overlay track and do exactly the same with this clip but instead of dragging to the left , drag the left top and bottom GREEN handles to the right. There are numerous combinations of this idea, you can follow the same procedure to produce up to six clips at a time.

dalemccl · Post by **dalemccl** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 5:08 pm

Mitchell65, thanks. I tried your suggestion, but may not have done it right. Dragging the top right green handle halfway to the left resulted in the right side of the clip being angled at about 45 degrees (as expected), and then dragging the bottom right green handle to the left made it straight again so that the clip occupied the left half of the screen like I wanted. But it still distorted the aspect ratio. (The distortion is more obvious on some clips than others, depending on what is in the scene).

However, while trying your suggestion, I discovered that if you place the mouse anywhere in the overlay clip except at the handles (the cursor turns into a 4-way arrow), then drag the clip left or right, it moves the entire clip. Moving it halfway to the left moves half of the clip off the screen (revealing the right hand half the clip in the main video track underneath) and keeps the aspect ratio correct.

I then tried it with three clips; one in the main video track, one in overlay #1, one in overlay #2. The same dragging technique applied to each of the two overlay clips quickly placed three clips on the preview screen, each with the proper aspect ratio. Dragging the clip up or down instead of left or right also works if you want a clip at the top or bottom of the screen. Drag it both horizontally and vertically at the same time and it ends up in a corner. Lots of possibilities for placement.

Thanks for putting me on to this technique. It literally takes only a few seconds to do. Your suggestion probably works too and I just did it wrong, but you led me to an easy way that works for me. It opens up some new creative possibilities for me.

mitchell65 · Post by **mitchell65** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 7:11 pm

That's good, stick to the system that works for you
Regards

Black Lab · Post by **Black Lab** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 8:46 pm

Put each on an overlay track then you can move them and resize them as needed.

When I gave this answer I assumed you knew how to move clips. I'm sorry I didn't better explain myself.

dalemccl · Post by **dalemccl** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 10:13 pm

Black Lab wrote:
Put each on an overlay track then you can move them and resize them as needed.
When I gave this answer I assumed you knew how to move clips. I'm sorry I didn't better explain myself.

No problem, that was a reasonable assumption. I had never used overlay tracks before so I never had a need to move them.