Cropping letterboxed footage

dr_stupid

dr_stupid

Active member
What is the easiest way to crop my whole project on rendering? I shot widescreen letterbox, I'm working in a 4:3 project, and I want to create both DVD and web streaming versions. I don't want the letterbox on my web version -- it's just wasted space. So what's the easiest way to get rid of it? I don't have to go and pan/crop every single clip, do I?

Also, I always get myself confused on aspect ratios. I'd like the web version to be sized on the order of 320x240 for easier downloading. But I'm starting with an aspect ratio of 16x9, and I'll be switching from DV to VGA pixels, right? So what does that come out to? My math gives me:

x/240 = 16/9
x = (240 x 16) / 9 = 426.67

426.67 x (0.9091) = ~388

So 388 x 240? Or am I doing this wrong??

Any help would be much appreciated! Thanks,

--Pete
 
close enough.. 16:9 DV isnt mathematical 16:9 to begin with.. and 4:3 DV isnt mathematical 4:3 to begin with either. of course people dont realize this because they never do the math or think about it.. but when they go to change a size or aspect ratio, they always try to make it mathematically correct. if your looking to make a litte 16:9 web window based off 320x240 being 4:3 in square pixels, your math is correct ...just use 427x240 is by all means, close enough. :)
 
Jubal28 said:
No one's pulling out a ruler, anyway.
Click to expand...
I found these three numbers both easy to remember and having a sort of 'magic' relationship:

486, 648, 864.

They are the 'true' pixel dimensions for video (Barry Green would explain why, with all the technical reasons I know I should care for but I don't).

648x486 = 4x3
864x486 = 16x9

The 'extra' six vertical pixels (lines) are not there in DV, so you end up with 480. There are always 720 pixels horizontally in DV, it's only the pixel aspect ratio that changes (approximately 0.9 for 4:3, 1.2 for 16:9).

When you throw that extra six lines away, you'll end up with eith 640x480 (exactly), or 853.3x480 (approximately). So, if you want to scale it down, either 320x240 or 427x240 will work.

AFAIK, the 'non-square' pixels (~388) don't work for either Quicktime or Windows Media rendering (at least I haven't figured out how they would).
 
It's all about the number 9. (As in 16x9, 12x9 (4x3), etc..)

You mix up numerals, the difference between the numbers will be a multiple of 9.
 
..the 720x 486 res is for full D1 reslution.. when DV compression came along it dropped those last 6 lines of vertical res so that it can use more efficient compression in macroblocks of 8x8 486 isnt divisible by 8 but 480 is.. so they chopped off the 6 lines of res to make the compression efficient. i mean you figure its in the overscan area for TV anyway.. so who cares right? and nobody cared it wasnt true D1 res 4:3 (720x486)anymore or the true 16:9 cause its close enough.. like david said.. nobody pulls out a ruler.. i mean just look at all the "16:9" Hd sets that are out there now.. hardly any of them are actually 16:9 in pixel dimesions.. they arent even normal HD resolutions.. seldomly youll find one thats actually 1280 x720 or 1920 x1080 but they are few and far between.. most of them are like 1368 x 720 and other wierd pixel counts and the set just scales all incoming signals to the sets given display dimensions..
 
Hey - thanks!! So it sounds like 427x240 will do it. Now how do I actually render out so that it crops the way I want it to? I tried just setting my output dimensions as 427x240 (square pixels) and unchecking "stretch to fill frame," but it seems to have chopped the top of my frame and left the letterbox on bottom...
 
What happens if you try changing the project dimensions? Maybe it will "center" the image, rather than just taking the top or bottom, cropping out the bars. Haven't tried it, but...
 
Hmm. Actually, I was wrong -- it didn't crop anything when I rendered - it just resized. Dan, I tried your suggestion and no dice. I've been trying a bunch of different stuff and can't figure out how to do it without pan/cropping every single clip individually. There has to be some way to crop on the track or the project level, but I can't find it. I'm sure I'm just missing something... Anyone??
 
I figured out a pretty easy way, if anyone else is interested. Vegas 6 allows nested .veg files. So if I pull my whole project into a new project as a nested .veg, it becomes one single event in the new project. Then I can just pan/crop that event and render out. Better than pan/cropping a million clips, and better than rendering twice. Maybe there is an easier way, but this seems to work.

By the way, sorry if this is old news to everyone -- I'm new to Vegas...
 
Funny that after reading this thread, I faced a similar problem (I think).

My project is 16:9, but when I import the footage, I have black bars at both sides, at the top and at the bottom of the frame (the top & bottom are as recorded by the camera). Basically, I need to stretch the image so that the bars disappear, but since the whole project is shot like that, I don't want to 'pan&crop' each event separately.

I used track motion to increase the frame size until it fits into the 16:9 preset. I think it's simpler than the nested .veg files, but haven't tried that, so... The only complaint I have is that it looks kind of fuzzy - hopefully that will get fixed when I render?

Does anyone have another solution?
 
Actually, that's a pretty good solution (brigning in the .veg file, nesting it, then pan/crop that one). Thanks for the tip ... it was news to me, but makes sense!
 
And, if you don't have v6, render the whole thing to a New Track, then do the crop on that.

Or anything else, for that matter.
 
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