Best way to insert 4:3 clips into a 16:9 project

[jparnold]

Firstly I would be grateful if someone could advise how to search for posts which contain 4:3 and/or 16:9. I tried entering 4:3 and then 16:9 into the search string and then clicked on search but it returned nothing.

Now for my question.
I accidentally set my vidcam aspect ratio to 4:3 for a full day during a recent trip. 90% of the entire video is at 16:9 and that is the aspect ratio I want to create my 'movie' in.
I do NOT want to use one method posted some time ago which results in stretching the image to fill the screen as it results in a small loss of resolution/sharpness.
I have found that if I place the 4:3 clips onto the overlay track (of a 16:9 project) with a solid black color in the video track I can produce a result with the 4:3 'movie' in the centre of (16:9) screen with black strips on the left and right side as you see on TV when a program in 4:3 aspect ratio is broadcast - this is what I want to produce to retain original resolution.

The problem I have is that I can see no easy method to stretch the 'default size' other than to drag the top left and bottom right of the overlay clip so that the height of the clip 'fills' the height of 16:9 clips.
Is this then ONLY way of achieving what I am trying to do?
If so I then either have to 'size' every clip in 4:3 aspect ratio (there are over 100 clips - very time consuming) OR to create a separate project at 4:3, place all the clips onto the timeline, edit where necessary and then RENDER the project into a single DV (AVI) clip and then insert that clips into my main 16:9 project.
Any suggestions?

[Black Lab]

Hi John,

See my tutorial:
http://forum.corel.com/EN/viewtopic.php?t=35839

[jparnold]

Thanks Jeff

I do remember seeing your post some time ago but had forgotten it. Very nice effect. It is a nice effect rather than just using black strips left and right.

I have over 100 clips I need to do this with which would be very time consuming applying the changes to each one. What do you think of creating a 4:3 project containing all the clips then rendering that to a (4:3) DV (AVI) movie and then inserting that clip into a 16:9 project and applying the changes as outlined in your post? Then I would only need to apply the changes once.

Where did you get the snazzy lead-in (rotating baseball) from? Have you seen any such clips showing the earth slowly rotating?

Also any ideas how to use the SEARCH feature (on the Corel web board) to find posts which have 4:3 or 16:9 in them? When I tried the search returned no results.

[Black Lab]

I supposed you could pre-render a 4:3 project and insert it into a 16:9, so long as you are not sacrificing quality.

As for the baseball clip, that is from Digital Juice. I believe they do have some earth clips. I would also check NASA. All their clips are royalty free too!

The search function seems to be hit or miss, though it's hard to believe 4:3 or 16:9 returned no results. That really is "miss"!