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Getting rid of widescreen black bars
Hi,
I’ve imported some footage from istock photo.com into my project which I guess must be a mix of widescreen and standard format footage. Unfortunately, when I render my project the aspect ratio changes in the finished file according to the aspect mentioned above.
Does anyone know how to standardise all the clips I’m using within my project so the finished article is uniform.
In additon,as I’ve already completed my project, if there is a way I can standardise my events, can I ideally do it after they’ve already been added, edited and made ready to render on the timeline to save me re-doing the entire project?
many thanks in advance
Matt
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2 Replies
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I think you have two choices: decide you want everything to look “widescreen” with black bars top and bottom, or else you want everything to be 4:3.
To make everything look “widescreen,” you can try this: go to a shot that is 4:3; open pan/crop; in the preset window, select 16:9 and apply it. However, most likely the preset will not match the bars you find on your existing widescreen shots. If the lines do match up, then right-click on the shot in the timeline, select “copy”, go to each 4:3 shot, right-click, select “paste event attributes.”
If the preset 16:9 bars do not match up with your existing widescreen shots, add two rows of generated black above your video. Mute one of them. With pan/crop, cut the bottom of one so that it matches the black bars of the existing widescreen shots. Un-mute the second line of black and then cut the top of the other so that it too matches the existing widescreen shots. ( Then your 4:3 shots will be cut off top and bottom.) For either solution, if there is critical matter being cut off either at the top or bottom of 4:3 shots, you will need to slide the shots up or down, one by one, to reveal the important parts.
To make everything look 4:3, go to file/properties; make sure under “template” you have slected NTSC DV (720 x 480) or equivalent, NOT a widescreen version. Then go to one of the shots; open pan/crop, right click on the image in pan crop, select “match output aspect.” That will crop the shot to 4:3. Then right-click on the shot in the timeline, select “copy”; go to each of the other widescreen shots, right click, and select “past event attributes.”
Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
http://www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
Many thanks Rick,
I will take a look at your suggestions!
Matt
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