How to Cro 16x9 for 4x3 timeline

[Richard Alvarez]

Okay, I work in Avid - but I'm on a project on a Vegas machine - fumbling with trying to figure out how to take some 16x9 footage (an Mp4 that imports letterboxed correctly enough) and ENLARGE the imgae to fill the 4:3 frame properly.

Doesn't seem intuitive to me - any advice is appreciated.

TiA

[Richard Alvarez]

Nevermind - found a preset

[Marty Welk]

so the original 16x9 is not already a 4:3 letterboxed IN the stored video? your just previewing it letterboxed and the original is 16x9? Meaning is the BLACK already stored in the file or not?

Is this a Vewing issue or a output issue?

Do you want it to be output Squeezed, so it will display in letterboxed on a 4:3 device as long as the authoring tag is set to 16x9? which will still play on a wide screen in 16x9?
or
Do you want it to be Edge cropped and become a 4:3 with the 2 side pillars hacked off?
so it displays 4:3 in the output device. and when played on a 16x9 device it will either fall out of aspect, or the display device will have to be forced to 4:3 ?

Do you want the video to be stored with Black (video) on the edges or top, or utalise the full resolution of the output media , and tag it for appropriate aspect viewing ?



for output:
Select the Stretch video to fill output frame size (do not letterbox) check box when you are rendering to an output format with a slightly different aspect ratio than your project settings. This will prevent black bars from appearing on the top and bottom or the sides of the output.


For edge cropping, you gotta zoom up on the video:
a. Click the Event Pan/Crop icon on the event to display the Event Pan/Crop dialog.

b. Right-click the workspace and choose Match Output Aspect from the shortcut menu.

c. Adjust the selection box to recompose your shot or remove the black bars from the masked video.

You may have to use keyframes to move the crop area (pan-and-scan editing) so your subject remains within the frame.

c. Click OK.



To see what is really going on with the aspect:
Right-click the Video Preview window and choose Simulate Device Aspect Ratio from the shortcut menu so your video is displayed in with its unsqueezed proportions.


and some other 1500 buttons :-) like the project res, and the preview res, and thier aspects.