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Pan and Scan giving me skinny head – Tweak aspect ratio in Pan and Scan
I am working with a bunch of 4×3 footage in a 16×9 seq. Additionally, I want to be able to do post moves (zooms and pans) on that footage.
When I do the conversion in Pan and Scan fro 4/3 to 16/9, it’s squashing the footage too much – giving me slightly skinnyhead people that noticeably look a bit off when mixed with footage actually shot 16/9. I’m noticing 100/125 is about right (as opposed to 100/134 which is what Pan and Scan wants to use for 4/3 to 16/9 correction).
If I leave both source and destination to 4/3, then I can go in and tweak aspect ration manually and set 100/125. But as soon as I want to do a zoom in, it doesn’t remember that relationship. I suppose I could pull out the calculator.\
I have tried other solutions (multiple resize effects layers, 3d warp) but they all have their pros and cons. See:
https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/45/892216Is there some way to change the default conversion ratio in Pan and Scan and then lock it so I can do zooms?
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5 Replies
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One way of doing it would be to lock your aspect ratio, than on the layer above, put Resize or 3D Warp, and do the moves and zooms on that layer.
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The downside is that this method means I can’t tilt/pan outside the area cropped on the first layer, as the bottom effect clips the source.
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The 100/134 numbers are correct. If things don’t look correct, your sources are probably not correct to begin with. The difference between 4×3 SD and 16×9 SD is 0.75 V (letterbox) or 1.34 V (fill to FHA).
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Oh, and one more thing, Pan & Scan is not really intended to fit foreign aspect ratios into your sequence. It is intended as a top layer effect to change your show’s aspect ratio to another aspect ratio.
If you need to mix 4×3 and 16×9 footage, you should just set the Image Aspect Ratio flag in the bin (it’s in the columns). At the same time, you can determine how Avid should conform this source in the ‘Reformat’ column in the bin (Stretch, Letter/Pillarbox, etc.).
If you do that, all shots should look correct as soon as you open them in source or record monitor. Also, you can add other effects at will.
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Thanks Job! That’s an interesting solution. I wish I had figured out about this a while ago. It still doesn’t solve the problem of letting me “cheat” the aspect ration a bit without layering effects or loosing the trim, so it kinda puts me back where I started.
Yes, I know Avid is doing the mathematically correct setting. It’s just two things:
Aesthetically, it helps fill the space a bit better if I “cheat” and leave the image slightly stretched.
I have some footage that appears it was recorded slightly off (the footage has been converted and converted, it’s a doc that is largerly found footage). So in those instances, the mathematically correct also looks visibly off.Anyway, thanks for the tip, for other projects I could see that being helpful.
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