cropping 16:9 to 4:3 without letterbox at DVinfo.net

Ali Jafri · December 19th, 2008, 03:08 AM

Hi people

This is rather a basic question but I can't seem to do it right. I need to crop a widescreen video to regular 4:3 in Vegas.

The video that I'm working with is a Mpeg-2 file 720x480, pixel aspect ratio of 0.889 and standard NTSC 29.970fps

I need to render this to a 4:3 by cropping off the left and right edges, not by letterboxing.

How?

Dugi Barr · December 19th, 2008, 07:16 AM

Open a 4x3 Project.
Open Event Pan/Crop.
Right click on your 16x9 clip and select "Match Output Aspect"

Mike Kujbida · December 19th, 2008, 08:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ali Jafri

The video that I'm working with is a Mpeg-2 file 720x480, pixel aspect ratio of 0.889 and standard NTSC 29.970fps

That doesn't look like any widescreen ratio I've ever heard of.
NTSC DV is 0.9091, NTSC widescreen is 1.2121, PAL DV is 1.0926 and PAL widescreen is 1.4568.
If you're rendering this to NTSC, you should just be able to drop it on a Vegas timeline without needing to crop it.

Bill Binder · December 20th, 2008, 04:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike Kujbida

If you're rendering this to NTSC, you should just be able to drop it on a Vegas timeline without needing to crop it.

Won't that just letterbox it? That's not really what he's trying to do.

I haven't done this in a long time, but it's fully possible to not only crop the 16:9 to 4:3 (cropping sides), but with pan/zoom, you can pretty easily use keyframes to do a real "pan and scan" approach (where you move the 4x3 crop around left to right wherever you want it for that particular scene).

Dugi Barr · December 20th, 2008, 05:07 PM

Just out of curiosity Ali, would these just happen to be your video/audio specs ?

--- Video Information ---
Video Codec MPEG2
Frame Width (pixels): 720
Frame Height (pixels): 480
Storage Aspect Ratio("SAR")" 1.500
Pixel Aspect Ratio ("PAR"): 0.889
Display Aspect Ratio ("DAR"): 1.333
Frames Per Second: 29.970
Video Bitrate (kbps): 8000
Broadcast standard: NTSC

--- Audio Information ---

Audio Codec AC3
Audio Sample Rate (Hz): 48000
Audio Bitrate(kbps): 192
Audio Bitrate Type CBR
Audio Channel Count 2

Greg Laves · December 20th, 2008, 09:29 PM

720 x 480 is already 4 x 3 SD. It sounds like you have a letterbox downconversion on SD. You could enlarge your image until the letterbox is gone and the right and left edges are pushed off of the screen but you would probably loose some image quality.

Christopher Drews · December 21st, 2008, 03:32 AM

This is called a center cut extraction and done all the time from a HD master. Is your original footage HD?

-C

December 19th, 2008, 03:08 AM	#1
Ali Jafri Major Player Join Date: May 2008 Location: Karachi, Pakistan Posts: 210	cropping 16:9 to 4:3 without letterbox Hi people This is rather a basic question but I can't seem to do it right. I need to crop a widescreen video to regular 4:3 in Vegas. The video that I'm working with is a Mpeg-2 file 720x480, pixel aspect ratio of 0.889 and standard NTSC 29.970fps I need to render this to a 4:3 by cropping off the left and right edges, not by letterboxing. How? __________________ Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit // i7 2600K // 16GB RAM // ASUS P8P67 Board // NVIDIA GTX 470 Sony Vegas Pro 13 // Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2014 // http://vimeo.com/alijafri

December 19th, 2008, 07:16 AM	#2
Dugi Barr Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Esher, Surrey Posts: 89	Open a 4x3 Project. Open Event Pan/Crop. Right click on your 16x9 clip and select "Match Output Aspect"

December 20th, 2008, 05:07 PM	#5
Dugi Barr Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Esher, Surrey Posts: 89	Just out of curiosity Ali, would these just happen to be your video/audio specs ? --- Video Information --- Video Codec MPEG2 Frame Width (pixels): 720 Frame Height (pixels): 480 Storage Aspect Ratio("SAR")" 1.500 Pixel Aspect Ratio ("PAR"): 0.889 Display Aspect Ratio ("DAR"): 1.333 Frames Per Second: 29.970 Video Bitrate (kbps): 8000 Broadcast standard: NTSC --- Audio Information --- Audio Codec AC3 Audio Sample Rate (Hz): 48000 Audio Bitrate(kbps): 192 Audio Bitrate Type CBR Audio Channel Count 2

December 20th, 2008, 09:29 PM	#6
Greg Laves Major Player Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Corpus Christi, TX Posts: 640	720 x 480 is already 4 x 3 SD. It sounds like you have a letterbox downconversion on SD. You could enlarge your image until the letterbox is gone and the right and left edges are pushed off of the screen but you would probably loose some image quality.

December 21st, 2008, 03:32 AM	#7
Christopher Drews Major Player Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 628	This is called a center cut extraction and done all the time from a HD master. Is your original footage HD? -C