Aspect ratio problems

  • Thread starter Thread starter Elizabeth Swoope
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Elizabeth Swoope

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.
 
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
 
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?

--
website references are to www.papajohn.org

PapaJohn (MVP)


Elizabeth Swoope said:
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
Click to expand...
 
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
 
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
--
website references are to www.papajohn.org

PapaJohn (MVP)


Elizabeth Swoope said:
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
Click to expand...
 
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
 
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

PapaJohn said:
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
Click to expand...
 
send it anyway.... Vista's Movie Maker handles aspect ratios differently 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
 
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.
 
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
 
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