Aspect Ratio Help

[SSJSteve]

Hey all.

In the process of a new AMV, I need a bit of help with aspect ratios.

I've got footage from "The Path to Power" from FUNimations DVD Four Pack, the footage is 4:3. I've also got footage from the Bardock Special, from FUNimations Double Feature, which is 16:9.

I want to do a side-by-side clip for a part in the AMV, now because the aspect ratios are different, there not sitting right together. I tried making the Bardock Special 4:3 (which worked) but I then get black bars on the top of the screen which is noticeable. At the moment I have the Path to Power footage in the top right of the screen while the Bardock footage is sitting on the corner of Path to Power. It looks ok, but not what I want.

Is there any way to make the footage 4:3 without having black bars on the top?

Any help would be much appreciated.

[Savage68]

There's no way to convert 4:3 footage into 16:9 footage or vice-versa without either cropping a noticeable amount of your video or stretching your video to "fit."

[SSJSteve]

Oh right.

I think I just solved my problem, I changed the "Pixel Aspect Ratio" to "0.9091 (NTSC DV)". It has stretched the footage, but it looks ok and it's matching Path to Power.

[VegettoEX]

That's not the solution you're looking for. It's doing things to the footage that you're not understanding, and it's not going to help your final output.

What Savage68 said still stands.

[SSJSteve]

That's not the solution you're looking for. It's doing things to the footage that you're not understanding, and it's not going to help your final output.

What Savage68 said still stands.

Never mind then. I guess I'll stick with the normal aspect ratio and sit the clip on the corner.

Thanks any way though.

Edit: I've got a video sample of the clip if anyone wants to look at? It looks ok to me, but I'd prefer a second opinion.

[Castor Troy]

I wouldn't crop any DBZ widescreen footage to 4:3. It will only drive you to madness.

[SSJSteve]

I wouldn't crop any DBZ widescreen footage to 4:3. It will only drive you to madness.

The clip is only 5/10 seconds, so it's not that noticeable. But still, it's not going to look great.

[Pokewhiz7]

Not sure if you've made it already, but you could just crop the PtP footage into widescreen.

[Cipher]

Why not just crop the "Path to Power" footage? The movie was designed to be watchable in 16:9 anyway.

If you're using footage from the series alongside the two movies, you could always manually crop that as well. It could still be completely watchable, a la widescreen Kai.

[SSJSteve]

If I crop "The Path to Power" wouldn't that mean I'd have black bars on the top and bottom of both videos? I don't really want it like that, it doesn't look good when it's on YouTube.

Here's a sample of the footage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BJuBik2qbg

Does that look ok?

[VegettoEX]

"Cropping" doesn't necessarily mean "black borders on top of video". You can simply not have video information that exists in that area. If you're working at 640x480, you can get a proper 16:9 aspect ratio around 640x360, removing 60 pixels from both the top and bottom (120 total).

I guess that begs the question... how are you working with the double-feature footage? Are you working in a ~854x480 true 16:9 work space, or are you working in a 640x480 work space in 4:3 with black bars physically encoded into the video? If you want to do the latter, you can just overlay the 60 & 60 pixels black bars over top for yourself to work with, and then just physically remove them in something like VirtualDub later on to get a 360p file.

[SSJSteve]

"Cropping" doesn't necessarily mean "black borders on top of video". You can simply not have video information that exists in that area. If you're working at 640x480, you can get a proper 16:9 aspect ratio around 640x360, removing 60 pixels from both the top and bottom (120 total).

I guess that begs the question... how are you working with the double-feature footage? Are you working in a ~854x480 true 16:9 work space, or are you working in a 640x480 work space in 4:3 with black bars physically encoded into the video? If you want to do the latter, you can just overlay the 60 & 60 pixels black bars over top for yourself to work with, and then just physically remove them in something like VirtualDub later on to get a 360p file.

The video project is 720x480, which is the default. The black bars are fixed on the screen, so if I try and move a clip upwards it starts to disappear, not go over the black bars.

I've just tested out a few video settings with the default 720x480 but changed the "Pixel Format" to "32-bit floating pointing (full range)" that seems to have got rid of the fixed black bars. I think the easiest way would be to change "The Path to Power" to 16:9, if I want the footage perfectly aligned. Even if I get rid of the black bars on the Bardock footage it still won't look right next to The Path to Power.

[VegettoEX]

I would say that unless you're making something for DVD, don't bother with 720x480 -- it's a size that's only used for DVD creation (and specifically to produce both 16:9 and 4:3 video by using the same dimensions and square vs rectangular pixel sizes), and is going to introduce confusion that you've already had.

The easiest way to do what you want to do is just going to be to work at a standard ol' 4:3 aspect ratio at 640x480 and manually crop DB movie 4 with some black bars over top (which, as I said, you can just flat-out remove later on with VirtualDub so you won't have a double-pillar-boxed final product on YouTube). The end result will only be 360p instead of 480p, but eh.

There's a lot more that could and should go into this, but without a thorough understanding of what's driving it all, you're best off just working as I've described.

Just for the heck of it, here are some black bars with a transparent 640x360 inner area to overlay on the video just to keep yourself sane and with a proper visual representation in the process (PSD / PNG).

[SSJSteve]

Oh, I didn't realise that setting was used for making DVDs, it's the default on Sony Vegas.

There's a lot more that could and should go into this, but without a thorough understanding of what's driving it all, you're best off just working as I've described.

Is there a better way of doing this? What types of information would I need to give for you to have a full understanding of what's going on with the project? I'd love to find a good fix for my problem for future projects. I'm sure I could provide all the information.

Thanks for your solution to my problem, I really appreciate the help.

[Pokewhiz7]

If I crop "The Path to Power" wouldn't that mean I'd have black bars on the top and bottom of both videos?

You could just put a border there. There's something I threw together in Vegas with Path to Power cropped into 16:9. There's also my settings in case you're wondering.

[SSJSteve]

Thanks Pokewhiz7.

I'll go back and start the AMV again with those setting.