Crop video to 16:9

[Peem]

I am trying to crop an odd size video clip to fill a 16:9 frame but want to crop out mostly the bottom part of the frame [i.e. not crop symmetrically]. On this Video Studio board I searched for 'crop video' but the search mostly brought up items about cropping still images on Paint Shop Pro. Using the FX tools in VS I have played around with 'cropping' and 'crop borders' but cannot find a way to make the cropped image fill the screen without borders or distorting the image. Any suggestions please?

Regards, Peter

[BrianCee]

When you use the "Cropping" FX filter in Videostudio and have opened the "Customise Filter" window down towards the bottom of it - next to the little drop downs where you can set sizes is a little box with an arrow in it next to 'Fill color'

click on that little box to remove the arrow - and your cropped image will then fill the screen.

[Peem]

Thanks Brian,
that certainly provided an undistorted video although it is framed by black borders around three sides [not the top] and does not fill the whole screen in the final video. I am sure I played with checking and unchecking the box but maybe at that stage I had a different option selected from the drop-down arrow to the left of the 'customise' filter. The one I finished up going with from the drop-down arrow was the centre option in the second bottom line, with a black border all around the image.

You would think VS might offer an option that makes the cropped video fill the whole screen. Previously I have used AVS for you to alter the aspect ratio but it does fill the whole screen with the cropped video but does not allow selection of the area -it automatically selects the full width of the image and cuts off top and bottom, which is okay unless there is something you want to crop out of the bottom part of the image.

Thanks again for your help. I think I still need to do a bit more research.
Regards, Peter

[Ken Berry]

You would think VS might offer an option that makes the cropped video fill the whole screen.

Why not put the cropped video in one of the overlay tracks and then right click the clip and choose Fit to Screen. It might require a bit of playing around, depending on how accurate your original cropping was, but it should give you close to what you are after...

[Peem]

Thanks Ken,
That sounded pretty logical but after playing with it for a while I don't think it will be my answer. The problem is when the video is cropped using the cropping FX the bottom one third of the screen is a black bar, so by fitting it to screen in the overlay track I end up with the bottom third of the screen being a black bar. I could get rid of that black bar I if I was able to pull the bottom handle on the sizing frame beyond the bottom of the screen to take the black bar out of the picture. I am pretty sure I played around with most the options using that route, including putting cropped and uncropped video into the overlay track and choosing all the right click options that looked to be half a chance. But no success so far.

I am working with video shot by a timelapse camera which, for some reason, records in the ratio about 1.25:1. It has no viewfinder and so is not always perfectly framed, hence my wish to crop out the bottom one third of the picture. It seems strange that this is not easier to do as, even with the best of cameras, I am sure there are times when people would want to crop their image asymmetrically to focus on a particular subject. Just about all serious still image photographers would crop their images to focus better on the subject. Another situation where cropping to a particular part of the screen would be useful is when panning with a fast moving object across the screen. If you were able to use a cropping tool with key frames it might be possible to keep the subject more centralised in the frame.

I did mention earlier that I normally use AVS to produce a 16:9 video from these clips but it crops equally off top and bottom. There is probably some other program available that allows asymmetrical cropping to produce a full frame picture. It is just a matter of finding it. Thanks for your suggestions.
Peter

[BrianCee]

There is no problem at all with pulling the yellow line down further - left click and hold on the whole image in the preview window - then push up - this will move the yellow line up so that you can then again grab the yellow box and pull it down. now left click and hold on the image again and slide down to bring the image back on screen - little bit hit and miss and you may have to do it more than once - but it does work

I am still at a loss though as to why a video which you say fills the preview screen shows black bars when rendered - are the properties you are using to render the same as your project properties - your not changing the frame size are you.

[Peem]

Thanks Brian,
We certainly need people like you to help us out with these little tricks that don't appear in the user's manual. I will try out that tip in a day or so. The trouble with the cropped video is that it doesn't really occupy the full screen but sits centralised in the top of the editing window with a black border on the sides and bottom. I think it would be central if I centralised the area I was cropping, but I want to do away with the bottom third of an initially almost square clip, and for some reason that moves the cropped image to the top of the window. It then renders with a black bar across the bottom third of the window. I will have a bit more of a play with it all in a day or so and post my findings.

Will keep you posted. Regards, Peter

[lata]

Hi Peem

Video Studio uses black as unused portions of the preview screen, go to Preferences and set the Preview Window Background colour to anything but black.
What you now see is the actual video frame.
Add your clip to the Overlay track.

Either manually adjust the size --- dragging the corners will retain the aspect ratio,
Or right click the video for size and anchor options.

If you were to provide a sample of your timelapse we would have a better understanding of the problem.
Upload to Drop Box, One Drive or Google Drive.

[Peem]

Thanks to the three of you.
I have achieved success using a combination of methods suggested by all of you but before reading Trevor's suggestion.

I loaded the clip in the timeline, made a copy of it and put that in the overlay track. I pulled all grab handles to the edge of the screen then pushed the image up beyond the top of the screen so that I could pull the bottom grab handle so that when I lowered the image again it would finish up about one third of the way below the bottom edge of the screen. Since I wanted to fade from Black at both ends of the clip I had to adjust the length of the top clip a little but it all finished up fine and rendered to give an image that filled the screen.

It was all so easy I don't think I will bother trying to work out what I was doing wrong with the cropping FX.

Thanks again for all your suggestions.

[BrianCee]

Glad we were able to help you