Ulead VS 11 squeezes 16:9 clip to 4:3 upon importing

[DrDtMM]

Our local cable company shoots 4-camera videos, mixed in real time and combined with professionally mic'd stereo audio, of all the formal concerts of the symphonic wind ensemble of which I am a member and trustee. I do the postproduction editing (Using Ulead VS 11) to add front-end titles, back-end credits, superimposed composition and composer names and clean up at the beginning, intermission and end of the concert recording. Until our most recent shoot, they had been recording in 4:3. The DVD disk they gave me after our most recent concert had been shot 16:9, and although I specified that the project properties should be the same as the clip properties (the entire concert was recorded as a single clip), upon importing the clip was treated as 4:3 with everything squeezed horizontally. It was particularly easy to notice because the back of our stage has a row of architectural squares that displayed as rectangles that were substantially taller than they were wide. The DVD disk that I started with played properly on DVD players attached to both 16:9 and 4:3 TV sets. I have tried everything I could think of within Ulead VS 11 to restore the 16:9 aspect ratio, but I was unable to do so. Clearly there has to be a way. Help!

[Ron P.]

Welcome to the forums,

Trevor Andrew has a fantastic guide for VideoStudio, http://lata.me.uk/video_studio/guides.htm, and one article deals with Working with Widescreen video. Have a look at it.

In the Preferences dialog do you have Show message when inserting first video clip checked? Also in the lower-left of the start-up/splash screen, there is a checkbox for 16:9 ratio. This will set the aspect ratio for your projects.

When (if or have you) rendered a video file, if the aspect ratio is not showing 16:9, select Custom at the bottom of the Create video file menu. Then press the Options button. On the General tab of the Video Save Options dialog, you can change the aspect ratio. I think with VS 11 there is a template choice, found just above the Custom option on the Create video file menu, for NTSC, DVD (16:9). I can't check it right now, as I don't have VS 11 installed on this machine, however it is present in VS X2.

[Ken Berry]

Can you tell us whether the DVD with the video on it is a 'video DVD' i.e. with a Video_TS folder on it full of .vob, .ufo and .ifo files? Or is it just a DVD with your video stored on it as if it were a data file?

If the latter, can you right click on the file in question inside the VS timeline or the library window and copy ALL its Properties here please? That way we will know exactly what we are dealing with. I am wondering, for example, if it is 1440 x 1080i HDV mpeg-2 which is really an anamorphic format. You may, for instance, apart from anything else, have 'Non-square pixel rendering' turned off and this could account for the wrong display...

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi

1 / If you simply add a 16:9 video to a 4:3 project then the video will look smaller, sitting inside the projects frame, but it will be in proportion. It will show black bars top and bottom
2 / The same affect will be seen adding a 4:3 to a 16:9, the video being in proportion, however the black bars show left and right.

3 / If your video frame looks distorted, not in proportion then the video has been captured to the wrong aspect ratio.


Distort option
For the first two aspect problems the frame is stretched/distorted back into shape, unfortunately some of the frame will be lost. You are literally zooming into the frame, as the black borders disappear so does the adjacent edges.

The third issue should return the frame back to shape without loosing any detail around the edges. As Ken mentioned, check out the Non-Square Pixel Rendering option.

Good luck

[BrianCee]

If you put a colour block or a still image into the timeline first (as a background for a title say) and your previous projects were 4:3 then when you import the new video to the timeline the auto-sense of the video file properties does not work and will remain at 4:3 so you will need to go into Project Properties and manually select the 16:9 option.

[DrDtMM]

I found my solution in the Working with Widescreen section of Trevor Andrew's guide to VideoStudio. Thank you Ron for suggesting it.

I had to re-distort my clip back to 16:9 from 4:3, and VS 11 has the tools for doing so. I have yet to incorporate my title images which include a logo graphic that I don't want distorted, but I feel quite confident that I'll be able to figure out what to do if that happens.

Dr. Dan the Marketing Man