Video encoding headaches

I'm trying to edit and encode original videos using the cheapie version of Vegas. I have no fault with the program but I am having a very difficult time getting the dimension correct.

When the file information is viewed in Explorer, it says the original unedited vids are 720x576 and 640x480 which are not the same aspect ratio. I want to embed these videos into webpages but both sizes of videos have 10 pixel black bars on the sides. So I want to crop them down to eliminate the unsightly bars. But then I end up with non standard dimensions (620x480 and 700x576). Is that weird? I never see videos with such strange dimensions. But I don't want to distort the videos by stretching them back out to standard dimensions. Another option is to crop the videos equally on all sides to maintain the original apect ratio but I still end up with non-standard dimensions of 620x465 and 700x560

Another problem I'm having... I definitely want to embed these videos. When I embed them, I have to add 45 pixels to the ActiveX Control Properties height to allow for the Windows Media Player controls at the bottom. So a video has the dimensions of 620x525. By taking a screen capture of the video, I can confirm that the actual vide is displaying at the correct size.

I don't have an answer to your question, more another question. I recently saw a video that had black bars on the side. It turned out my friend had filmed the scene using a photo digital camera and had place it in the vertical mode. I am curious about how those black bands came to be on your vid. Do you know?

Xstr8guy - is it a problem to have odd-sized videos? can't you simply compensate in the page code? and did you try and get hold of jason or curiousbunny? i know they haven't been around much, but i believe they have a lot of video knowledge most of us here don't have. there's an adult webmaster video board out there somewhere, btw. i'll try and find the url.

hey, frank - that's pretty interesting, as well as a concern for me since i was going to shoot lower quality videos through a digicam i'm getting next month. the idea was it would be "the muscle cam" so a slightly different look of video is desirable, but black bars aren't.

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Originally Posted by basement

I don't have an answer to your question, more another question. I recently saw a video that had black bars on the side. It turned out my friend had filmed the scene using a photo digital camera and had place it in the vertical mode. I am curious about how those black bands came to be on your vid. Do you know?

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I know that in Premiere, and presumably in Vegas as well, you can crop the image without distorting it. So, assuming the content is framed so you could lose a little around the edges without creating a problem, my solution would be to just crop it in a little bit on whatever side (horizontal or vertical) to get it back to the aspect ratio and size you need.

With Premiere, at least, I can crop up to about 15-20% with no noticeable degradation in quality. I have experimented cropping much more aggressively, such as to get a cumshot closeup, but it does degrade the video quaility quite a bit when you get about 25-30% or greater.

Ditto with the black bars... you can always crop them out, assuming the content is shot such that you can lose an equivalent amount from the vertical side, assuming the bars are on the horizontal side.

Ack! I can crop the video to nothing and I still get those damned black bars on the left and right! It must be something in the original encoding. But even still, you would think that you get rid of them.

can you put a small piece of one of them online for me to play with? just 20 seconds max. i'm curious now.

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Originally Posted by Xstr8guy

Ack! I can crop the video to nothing and I still get those damned black bars on the left and right! It must be something in the original encoding. But even still, you would think that you get rid of them.

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Sounds like some wierdness with settings. I don't remember exactly, but there's something with video content relating to the shape of the pixels (It's a setting somewhere in Premiere, presumably as well in Vegas) and whether they're square or rectangular, which affects the end size/shape of the video. If you have it set one way, then the video will be elongated widthwise. It's possible that the video was shot with one setting and is being edited with the other. If that's the case, changing that setting should solve the problem. I wish I could be more specific, -- I do remember running into that issue before -- but I don't remember specifically what the setting is called.

Well, I have found a solution that I am not completely happy with. Even though I crop the video to the same aspect ratio as the finished video I still need to check the "stretch to fill frame" box. I wanted to avoid anything that fudged with the quality... but oh well.

Patti, I send you some links via PM.



*Edit... I'm going to have to make you a vid to look at Patti. I overwrote all of my videos with black bars. I'll render a new one and upload and send you a link.

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Originally Posted by boyfunk

Sounds like some wierdness with settings. I don't remember exactly, but there's something with video content relating to the shape of the pixels (It's a setting somewhere in Premiere, presumably as well in Vegas) and whether they're square or rectangular, which affects the end size/shape of the video. If you have it set one way, then the video will be elongated widthwise. It's possible that the video was shot with one setting and is being edited with the other. If that's the case, changing that setting should solve the problem. I wish I could be more specific, -- I do remember running into that issue before -- but I don't remember specifically what the setting is called.

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That sounds like a very real possibility. It's like there are phantom pixels in there. Maybe they are just rectangular pixels. If anyone can find the setting in Vegas... let me know. :)

Sounds like boyfunk is right.

I haven't seen that problem before, but the shape of the pixels can make everything look totally different.

when you go to render as, you will see a box with save options. on it, you will see "custom" on the lower right. choose that and find or create your settings, and when you go to VIDEOS on the tabs, you will see pixel aspect ratio which allows you to go round or square. there is some more stuff on that page, too.

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Originally Posted by Xstr8guy

That sounds like a very real possibility. It's like there are phantom pixels in there. Maybe they are just rectangular pixels. If anyone can find the setting in Vegas... let me know. :)

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Originally Posted by Xstr8guy

Ack! I can crop the video to nothing and I still get those damned black bars on the left and right! It must be something in the original encoding. But even still, you would think that you get rid of them.

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I've been having lots of luck lately with River Past Video Cleaner Pro (which allows you to convert and change the frame size / resolution) and Sorenson Squeeze (which allows you to convert, crop [by easily dragging out a box to select the new frame size], and most impressively, to compress) --- the latter of which boyfunk kindly turned me on to in another thread. I took a 13GB 30 minute raw .avi file down to a 220MB .wmv with little loss of quality.

I found the Adobe Media Encoder in Premiere 1.5 to be a bit of a downer, thought I haven't tried 2.0 yet.

i believe that the size isn't the main issue here - the black border is.

and once you know how to do it in vegas, it's painfully easy to change size or aspect ratio - or both ;)

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Originally Posted by arrival77

I've been having lots of luck lately with River Past Video Cleaner Pro (which allows you to convert and change the frame size / resolution) and Sorenson Squeeze (which allows you to convert, crop [by easily dragging out a box to select the new frame size], and most impressively, to compress) --- the latter of which boyfunk kindly turned me on to in another thread. I took a 13GB 30 minute raw .avi file down to a 220MB .wmv with little loss of quality.

I found the Adobe Media Encoder in Premiere 1.5 to be a bit of a downer, thought I haven't tried 2.0 yet.

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