8 replies to this topic

[Bman.]

Does anyone know if it's possible to set the output of Windows Movie Maker to a custom aspect ratio?  The videos I am working on are neither 4:3 nor 16:9 - since they are captured from my Matrox 3H2Go.  I am trying to not have letterbox top and bottom...  so I would like to change the output aspect ratio...

I can't find anything that shows how to change those default two options.   I do have a custom output profile but the movie maker itself format the overall aspect ratio.

Any thoughts?

[roboa]

From using Movie Maker in the past I'm pretty sure you're unable to have a custom one. Movie Maker just isn't advanced enough.

[Bman.]

Follow up question...

Does Youtube stick to only 4:3 and 16:9 standards.  Changing my aspect ratio (to eliminate letterbox) may not be worth while in the end anyway...

[tropicalfish]

The Youtube display works somewhat like this...

(4:3 in red, 16:9 in blue)
If your video is in 4:3, you'll get the black sides. If your video is 16:9, it'll stretch out to fit the black space.

[Invisiblemoose]

You can crop the letterbox bars out of the final video using another software, like VirtualDub.

http://virtualdub.sourceforge.net/

In VirtualDub, you just click Video -> Filters -> Add filter -> Resize and from there you can crop/resize etc.

Then you can go to Video -> Compression to choose a compression method, and then save as a .AVI (File -> Save as .AVI)...

I don't think any compression codecs are included, so if nothing's installed you can get XVID here: http://www.xvid.org/...loads.15.0.html

But you ought to have FFDshow installed... It's included with CCCP ( http://www.cccp-project.net/ ), a great filter/codec pack...

>.> This wasn't intended to be a complicated process... Video encoding is a pain... Might write a guide on encoding with x264.exe at some point...

Edited by Invisiblemoose, 26 October 2009 - 08:13 PM.

[Bman.]

Ok - yeah, I can render to either of the typical formats just fine.

The short story is that my videos are recorded at 1920x512  (which is 1/2 scale of the full resolution of 3840x1024).  I have determined that I need to scale these videos to a 16:9 resolution which I plan 1280 x 720 to stick in an HD format.

Getting my videos to 1280x720 is the tricky part.  What Vegas renders versus what it previews are two different things even though I have set the project to 1280x720 (all with a pixel aspect ratio of 1) and have scaled the first keyframe to crop video to fit somewhere close.  Any one a pro at Vegas?


Duhhhh - I figured it out.  The preview screen itself was cropping.  As soon as I moved it off to a separate screen...voila.

Bman.

Edited by Bman., 26 October 2009 - 08:58 PM.

[tropicalfish]

If you're posting this on Youtube, IMO the best way to go would be to crop off the left and right, because of the lower resolutions on Youtube and the aspect ratio of the monitors of many viewers.

[Bman.]

Yep, that's just what I have done.  I had to crop the ends off.  I still left a slim letterbox at the top and bottom just to keep a slightly wider view...

Now the next question - DBS Walk and Follow, it this what I need to set up cameras at the end of the runway etc?  I am not really sure how it works.  I trust I set up a camera, fly a flight, then replay in the camera view and record...?

Is W&F easy to use?