 |
 | Home | Contact Us | FAQ | Search & Site Map | Link to Us |
 | Sign In | Join | Other 45 Sites in Network |
Windows Forum / Windows XP / Movie Maker / May 2008Aspect ratio problems
I am using Windows Media Encoder to capture presentations and program demonstrations with accompanying narration in a Dell notebook running at 1440 x 900. That's working great, except that I want to trim the videos to get rid of the section at the beginning where I turn encoding on and the section at the end where I want to turn encoding off. The files are reasonable size, the quality is excellent, and they seem to play fine on computers with other resolutions so I don't really want to tamper with them much. I've tried using Windows Media File Editor but there doesn't seem to be a way to move through the file one frame at a time to get the perfect trim spots so I decided to try Movie Maker. I have read PapaJohn's excellent article on custom profiles and have used several but I am having awful problems with the screen resolution. ------------ In the original unedited video, the recorded screen measures 7.25" wide x 5.5" tall, which is 4:3. When I try a custom profile set to 1440 x 900 (my computer's native resolution), the resulting recorded screen measures 6 x 5.5 if I use the 4:3 aspect ratio and 7.75 x 5.375 if I use the 16:9 aspect ratio. IOW, the resulting image is nearly square or way too wide, not the 4:3 that the original video is. I even tried a custom profile with the video size set to same as video input, but that profile doesn't show up in the list of Other settings (as PapaJohn's article says will happen). How do I use Movie Maker to do nothing more than trim my video without changing the file size (other than making it smaller because pieces will be edited out) and especially without changing the recorded screen size? I really appreciate any and all suggestions and help. I will be recording my lectures in a statistical programming class this summer and would like to be able to do basic editing to the files without making too many changes to the original recorded video. I hope that I'm just missing something very basic. Thanks, liz Hi Liz, You might be into an issue with the player that's being used to view it rather than an issue with the video itself. Right click a WMV file and check it's properties. The properties include the width and height in pixels. Being square pixels, that tells you the aspect ratio.... when the player uses that to display it. Movie Maker puts a tag in the file saying that it's standard 4:3 or widescreen 16:9. Some players override the pixel dimensions and show it based on the tag. Different versions of Windows Media Player do it differently.  Signaturewebsite references are to www.papajohn.org PapaJohn (MVP) >I am using Windows Media Encoder to capture presentations and program > demonstrations with accompanying narration in a Dell notebook running at [quoted text clipped - 49 lines] > > liz PapaJohn, Thanks for the quick response. I'm using Windows Media Player 9.00.00.4503 running under Win XP to play all versions of the video. The original video shows a resolution of 1440 x 900 and displays with the correct aspect ratio. It is 315K. Different versions of that video edited with Movie Maker are MUCH larger (even when I've specified the same audio codec) and the resolution is still listed as 1440 x 900, but display either nearly square (if I used 4:3) or very long (if I used 16:9). Is there an editing tool that works the way that the one that comes with Encoder works, except frame by frame instead of by seconds? (and is free or very inexpensive with an educational discount?) I can probably work around this just by pausing a couple of seconds at the beginning and at the end, but I want the option of editing out bits in the middle, as well. Again, thanks for your reply. liz > Hi Liz, > [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > based on the tag. Different versions of Windows Media Player do it > differently. If you can check one in WMP10 or WMP11, you might find they view differently. And other players will vary the viewing experience also. Is your goal to always play them with WMP9? Signaturewebsite references are to www.papajohn.org PapaJohn (MVP) > PapaJohn, > [quoted text clipped - 39 lines] >> based on the tag. Different versions of Windows Media Player do it >> differently. PapaJohn, Rats! I thought you had the solution. (Brand new Dell notebook, I immediately updated Windows and Office, never thought about WMP not being current!) Unfortunately, I just installed WMP11 and it does the same thing. I haven't tried any other media players, but will investigate that option now. Looks like I'll have to use the editor that comes with Windows Media Encoder or find a player that maintains the correct aspect ratio and suggest that my students install it or they'll have to live with things out of proportion a bit. For most things, the aspect ratio won't matter. Thanks, liz > If you can check one in WMP10 or WMP11, you might find they view > differently. And other players will vary the viewing experience also. > > Is your goal to always play them with WMP9? feel free to send a smaller... under 10 MB... sample and I'll look at the options I have. my email address is in the insert on my Personal Services page Signaturewebsite references are to www.papajohn.org PapaJohn (MVP) > PapaJohn, > [quoted text clipped - 22 lines] >> >> Is your goal to always play them with WMP9? PapaJohn, I will send three short samples so you can (maybe) see what I mean, a little later this afternoon. I tried so many different tests that I've forgotten which was which so I will generate fresh files with appropriately descriptive names. thanks, liz > feel free to send a smaller... under 10 MB... sample and I'll look at the > options I have. > > my email address is in the insert on my Personal Services page PapaJohn, I think I see the problem. I've looked at the properties of the original video clip and the aspect ratio is 8:5. (Thank you, Dell!) Since Windows Movie Maker can handle only 4:3 or 16:9, it creates an out-of-proportion video no matter what. Is there any point in pursuing this? If you think there's something that can be done, I'll send a short (33 second, 320K) video clip. If not, I don't want to waste your time. These videos are one small step up from a tape recording of a lecture so there's no point in spending much time and energy trying to work around this problem. liz > feel free to send a smaller... under 10 MB... sample and I'll look at the > options I have. [quoted text clipped - 26 lines] > >> > >> Is your goal to always play them with WMP9? send it anyway.... Vista's Movie Maker handles aspect ratios differently and I'd like to check it there. Signaturewebsite references are to www.papajohn.org PapaJohn (MVP) > PapaJohn, > [quoted text clipped - 49 lines] >> >> >> >> Is your goal to always play them with WMP9? PapaJohn, Do you want my custom profile, as well? liz > send it anyway.... Vista's Movie Maker handles aspect ratios differently and > I'd like to check it there. sure, send it along... you mean the one that doesn't show up? Signaturewebsite references are to www.papajohn.org PapaJohn (MVP) > PapaJohn, > [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] >> and >> I'd like to check it there. PapaJohn, No, one of my 1440 x 900 ones... (the one I'll use to create the 4:3 and 16:9 MM clips). I'll just zip everything up and e-mail it. I'm working on it now. I do see that I could use MM to get the exact seconds where I want to cut the video in the file editor utility, then seek that place and mark. It's a little cumbersome, but it would work. liz > sure, send it along... you mean the one that doesn't show up? The package came in fine... all the wmv's play fine. I'll review the posts again to see where you're heading and be sure I understand the issue. Signaturewebsite references are to www.papajohn.org PapaJohn (MVP) > PapaJohn, > [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > >> sure, send it along... you mean the one that doesn't show up? PapaJohn, I'm not having any problems with the videos playing. It's just that the aspect ratio changes from that of the original. The details you need are in the second part of my original post, where I actually used a ruler to measure the size of the presentation page in each version of the video. If I were showing lots of photos, the strange aspect ratio would be a huge problem. However, Most of what I'm doing will be text (presentation slides, program demos), so it's not a huge problem, especially since I've figured out that I can get the times I need using MM and then use the plain editor to seek each time and mark. Thanks for taking the time to investigate this. liz > The package came in fine... all the wmv's play fine. I'll review the posts > again to see where you're heading and be sure I understand the issue. |
Reply to this Message |
 Sign In
 Join
 My Latest Posts My Monitored Threads My Blog My Photo Gallery My Profile My Homepage Start New Thread Enable EMail Alerts Rate this Thread
|
©2008 Advenet LLC Privacy Policy - Terms of Use
This website includes both content owned or controlled by Advenet as well as content owned or controlled by third parties.