16:9 Video Is Being Imported Squished and Letterboxed

[Jonny]

HELP! Using Video Studio 2018. I imported a 1920 X 1080 AVCHD file to edit, but in the edit window it's looking "squished" and letterboxed. I also noticed a tiny symbol in the video's thumbnail frame photo on the timeline -- I have no idea what that symbol indicates. The symbol has a black rectangle with two horizontal rows of four or five white dots each. What am I doing wrong?

[lata]

Jonny
Welcome to the forums
First can you update your profile to include your Corel program then you will not have to type in those details for every post you make.

Not an awful lot to go on but the symbol may indicate that a filter of some type has been used.
A little unusual for video to be squashed. By squashed do you mean distorted or just a smaller size

What type of AVCHD? Does this happen to all videos you use or just this particular one?
Right click the clip and choose properties, what are they?
Did you insert the video from the library or directly from the hard drive.
If you view the video from within the library what does it look like?

1 / Double click the clip will open the options panel, Attributes tab shows any FX filters used, are there any entries in the panel below the words “ Replace last Filter”

2 / OK try importing the video again.

Right click the clip and choose Locate on Computer
Using windows explorer, either rename the file, simply add a character to the end of the name, Or create a Copy of the video file.
Start a new project
From Video Studio F6 Preferences make sure Show Messages is selected/ ticked
Import the video file to the timeline does that still show the squashed effect, you should see a message to match the project, yes to that.

[Jonny]

Thank you, Lata -- I'm really grateful for your taking the time to reply, and so thoroughly! Strangely enough, I just re-opened the same project and now the video looks fine in the edit window and that unidentifiable symbol in the frame thumbnail on the timeline has vanished. To answer your question, the video did look vertically compressed in the edit window and continued looking that way through the numerous times I tried deleting and re-importing the same clip. I've been using Corel editing software for many years and that's the only time something like that had occurred. A bit weird, indeed.

[Jonny]

Oops, -- I just noticed your name, Trevor! Sorry for addressing you as "Lata"!