3:4 aspect ratio to 16:9?

[Jesse Kane]

Hi! Thank you.
So all the footage in the timeline will be the same as mentioned above. I don’t want to scale up the image, it’s already pretty dodgy. What I would like to do is shrink up the height so that it is essentially 720 wide and ____ high to make it appear as a rectangle. But when I do that, it shrinks my footage down so that the square image is inside the new 720 x ______ rectangle, but it is at 100% so blowing it up to fit the left and right edges isn’t an option. Im just not sure if what I want is a reality.

[Jesse Kane]

Hi! Thank you.
So all the footage in the timeline will be the same as i have listed above. I don’t want to scale up the image, it’s already pretty dodgy. What I would like to do is shrink up the height so that it is essentially 720 wide and ____ high to make it appear as a rectangle. But when I do that, it shrinks my footage down

[Jon Doughtie]

You basically have only two options – blow the footage up on a 16:9 timeline, or crop/letterbox on a 4:3 timeline.

There is a third option, but it involves distortion as well. That is a process that holds most of the image center as-is, but gradually adds stretch to the sides to fill out to a 16:9 aspect ratio. It will still introduce a “funhouse mirror” kind of look that can’t be avoided. Not ture how you would do it in PPro or AE, as it is not a process I use.

System:
Dell Precision T7600 (x2)
Win 7 64-bit
32GB RAM
Adobe CC 2017.1 (as of 8/2017)
256GB SSD system drive
4 internal media drives RAID 5
Typically cutting short form from UHD MP4, HD MP4, and HD P2 MXF.

[Jeff Pulera]

Create NEW SEQUENCE as NTSC DV Widescreen. Drop clip into it. Scale to look correct. Whether you go interlaced or progressive will depend on source clip.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jesse Kane]

Thank you. I don’t think that will work for me, I don’t wan t to blow up the horizontal size, I just want to chop off some of the top and bottom.

[Jesse Kane]

Thank you. That is my fear. I just wish there was a way to chop off the top and bottom without effect the left to right in any way.

[Jeff Pulera]

We don’t know what you want to do with the footage, puts us at a disadvantage. If you want to go to DVD, then you must use 720×480, so again, making the DV Wide sequence, drop 4:3 clip in there, and scale until it fills the screen. None of the image gets cut off, but is blown up a bit (assuming source is 16:9 image letterboxed into 4:3 frame).

If making clip for digital delivery, then try a 640×360 custom sequence, with 1.0 pixel aspect – that will be a 16:9 image. Use no interlace/progressive. Then drop your clip into that sequence and adjust position and scale as necessary, but should not be blowing up the image at all thus no extra pixelization.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Jesse Kane]

I won’t be putting this on dvd, just online. The 720×480 just gives me the same issue I am dealing with, a 4:3 image.

[Jesse Kane]

Thank you! I am only putting this online, no dvd. I have tried what you mentioned but I still end up having to engage the image. It sits into the sequence not fitting correctly yet at 100%, so to make it fit I have to enlarge it quite a bit, which makes this 20something year old video 8 footage simply fall apart. Perhaps I am missing an important step you mentioned.

[Blaise Douros]

You can also check out Atomic Stretch, which is a free plugin built for exactly this application:

https://atomicimagelabs.com/

I have no affiliation, just have used it once or twice. It works pretty well!