Converting 4:3 to widescreen

[MJK1250]

All
I have three interrelated questions on converting my old videos (most were shot 25-30 years ago so I'm sure they are 4:3) to widescreen.

I watched Steve's Learning Series "Force Project Settings in PRE 11" and thought I understood what to do. Start a new project and before I put anything on the timeline, I should set the preset to Widescreen 48kHz and click Force Project Settings. Except at the very end of the tutorial when Steve placed an ACVHD video on the timeline with the widescreen preset and Force Project Setting in effect, the clip ran off the frame. So, Steve went back and clicked Scale to Frame Size which worked.

Then in Steve's book I found this little semi-hidden paragraph on page 68 that discusses Interpret Footage.

Soooo, I know what I've got - hundreds of 4:3 clips - and I know what I'd like to end up with - DVD's showing a variety of those clips in widescreen format.

My questions are:
1. Should I set the preset to Widescreen 48kHz with Force Project Settings checked, and then each time I bring a clip to the timeline, check to see if it fits and if it does not, go back and check Scale to Frame Size?
2. Do I need to right click each clip and select Interpret Footage?
3. Will either of the above impact any transitions or title pages I want to add to the project or will they automatically adjust to the widescreen format I want.

I'm grateful for any suggestions or advice.

MJK1250

[Bob]

Question 1: Assuming you set your project to Widescreen, Scale to Frame Size won't do anything. Standard Definition 4:3 is exactly the same height as Widescreen 16:9 and will already fit entirely within the project frame size. Scale to Frame Size will see that and will not do any scaling.

SDvsWide..jpg

Question 2: Interpret Footage can force Premiere Elements to scale the 4:3 footage asymmetrically and stretch the image to fill the horizontal width of the project frame. But, that will distort the image. People and things will look wider/fatter.

Question 3: Titles and transitions you create within Premiere Elements will be fine.

The real question here is should you use a widescreen 16:9) project or a standard fullscreen (4:3) project. If all your media is native 4:3 material, you could use a standard (4:3) project. If you want to display this on a high def TV with no black bars on the sides, you can use the dvd player or tv controls to stetch the image horizontally to fit. That way you have the option of watching both ways. If you use Interpret Footage in a widescreen project, you'll get the same effect, but the distortion will be forever locked in.

If you have some 16:9 media, photos, etc., you can certainly use the widescreen project setting to advantage. The 4:3 media will not fill the entire screen. You can leave that as is and have black fill in the empty areas, or you can place a background image on video track 1 and your 4:3 video on a higher track. You can use one of the motion videos from here, a photo, or a colored background.

[MJK1250]

Bob
Thanks so much for the quick reply - and on a weekend to boot.

I now understand (was hoping that somehow the magic of PRE11 could convert my native 4:3 to 16:9 without distortion) that if I force the project settings, I will simply have a distorted (wider/fatter) finished project which of course is not what I want.

Therefore, it seems to me that I may as well just bring my first clip to the timeline and PRE11 will automatically adjust the setting to fit my clip - I assume that will be Standard 48kHz. This will leave me with black bars or borders around my video but I suppose I will have to live with that - no big problem.

Just one last question ( I promise).

I have numerous still photos that I want to intersperse between various 4:3 clips throughout my project. As per your suggestion in an earlier post I have cropped and resized them all to 1000X563 in order for them to have pan & zooms and then appear full screen on a widescreen TV. Now for the question:

If I understand it correctly, PRE11 will set the project settings according to the first clip/image I drag to the timeline. If I start my project with one of my 1000X563 photos, will the project settings no longer be correct for any 4:3 videos I subsequently add to the timeline? And vice versa, if I begin my project with a 4:3 video and want to follow that with a photo, and then more clips after the photo, will the photos still appear full screen on a widescreen playback or would I have to do something to each photo (Scale to frame size, Force Project Setting??).

Sorry for the novice question but I'm so darn close to actually doing the color correction and video editing that I'm anxious to begin but don't want to start out on the wrong setting and waste time and effort due to lack of understanding the start-up process.

Thanks again for all your help.

MJK

[Bob]

I'm assuming your video clips are standard definition full screen 4:3. If you drop one on an empty timeline and let Premiere Elements change the project settings to match, you will get a standard definition full screen 4:3 project. When you create a DVD with this project, it will play on your wide screen HDTV at full height, but it will not fill the full width of the HDTV because full screen is narrower than wide screen. It doesn't matter that your photos are wider than full screen, in this project setting only the portion that will fit within the full screen boundary will display. Black bars will appear on the left and right sides on the HDTV.

If you force the project settings to a standard definition wide screen project, the project screen ratio (16:9) will match your HDTV screen ratio. When you create a wide screen DVD with this project, it will fill the height and width of your HDTV -- but, only the photos can fill the entire screen, not the videos. Your videos are still 4:3 and narrower than 16:9, there will be black bars on the sides. As I mentioned earlier, the black bars on the sides of the video clips are transparent and you can place a different background underneath if you don't want black to appear. Be sure to create a wide screen DVD with this project setting. If you create a full screen dvd it will be letterboxed and you will get black bars all around when you play it on your HDTV.

As for the behavior of photos on the timeline. Photos do not cause Premiere Elements to change the project settings. If you place a photo as the first item of an empty timeline, the project settings will not be affected. They will stay what they were before. If you now place a video as the second item on the timeline, Premiere elements will not offer to change the project settings. That only happens when the video is the first item to be placed on the timeline and it doesn't match the project settings. You can add whatever you want as subsequent items and it won't affect the settings.

[MJK1250]

Thanks Bob - I think I've got it, now on to the actual editing.

MJK