How to rotate 16:9 video

[dogron]

Am still using Videostudio 9, so if the problem below is solved in a later version, please let me know.

Am trying to rotate a MPG video taken with an original aspect ratio of 16:9 in portrait mode ie long side vertical.
The video loads into Videostudio fine, ie the image is sideways-on as expected and there are the black bars at top and bottom in the edit window as is usual for 16:9 videos.
If I use the rotate button, this does rotate the video, but there are now black bars down the left/right sides as well as top and bottom, and the viewable image looks 4:3 (?) - it is flattened ie people look short and fat.
Is there a particular project property/create video setting I need to set. I don't understand the settings - I'ver tried things like 'non-square pixel rendering' without knowing what to expect - but nothing so far seems to work.

Any help - much appreciated
Ron

[BrianCee]

I notice you haven't been around since December 2005 - so 'Welcome Back'

If you take a video and rotate it through 90 degrees you are always going to get black bars down each side - because of the video format - no matter if 16:9 or 4:3 - there is nothing you can do about that .

The black bars top and bottom are I suspect entirely due to the way videos are viewed in the preview window - if you have your project properties set to 16:9 you will always see black bars top and bottom because basically the preview window is a 4:3 format - when you view your video on a true 16:9 screen it should not have black bars top and bottom - but I'm afraid you are stuck with bars each side.

You can probably get rid of the 'squashed ' distortion your seeing - in the top left corner of VS9 right under the tab with the project name on there are two tabs - 'Video' and 'Attributes' - Video is the default so click on Attributes, now down the left side you will see a box with 'Distort Clip' next to it - click to tick the box.

In the preview screen a box with yellow markers will appear - with your mouse cursor move the markers up the sides out a little to get the image you want.

Moral - always keep your video camera the right way round.

It's a long time since I opened up VS9 - nice to see the young lady on the splash screen again - she's probably married with children by now

[dogron]

Thanks very much for the very helpful reply, Brian.

I notice you haven't been around since December 2005 - so 'Welcome Back'

Thanks - I hadn't realised, till I tried looking on the forum yesterday, that it was quite that long.
VS9 has so far done all I've wanted to do - fairly simple editing and titling - and because I had problems in familiarising myself with the new options with my last upgrade (from VS6 to VS9 - as in my last post), I've decided to stick with VS9 for the time being.

You can probably get rid of the 'squashed ' distortion your seeing - in the top left corner of VS9 right under the tab with the project name on there are two tabs - 'Video' and 'Attributes' - Video is the default so click on Attributes, now down the left side you will see a box with 'Distort Clip' next to it - click to tick the box.
In the preview screen a box with yellow markers will appear - with your mouse cursor move the markers up the sides out a little to get the image you want.

This is what I was after, and it works perfectly for me - so thanks again. "Distort" was one of the features I thought I'd never have a need to use, so was unfamiliar with what it could do - just goes to show, you should never say never
Pity there isn't some sort of clickable setting which would allow consistent "distortion" from clip to clip.

Moral - always keep your video camera the right way round.

Basically the scene is portrait - (I'm trying to video a couple dancing). It seemed easier to video with the camera turned round than take regular landscape videos and then zoom/crop them to get the image I wanted. Plus, being indoors, there wasn't enough room to get all the content I wanted in in landscape mode - the camera had to be on its widest setting as it was.

It's a long time since I opened up VS9 - nice to see the young lady on the splash screen again - she's probably married with children by now

Another reason I didn't upgrade

Anyway - thanks again. All best.
Ron

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi

Pity there isn't some sort of clickable setting which would allow consistent "distortion" from clip to clip.

Using the overlay track will allow you to distort the frame of the first clip, then Copy and Paste the Attributes to the remaining clips.

[dogron]

Thanks Trevor - works a treat

Also thanks for including the links to your user guide - have only just had a quick scan, but already found them very informative.

Regards
Ron