Image size and aspect ratio

[tedco]

Hello,

I am in the process editing some old VHS tapes which I have transferred via a hard disk recorder, burned to dvd's on the recorder and then transferred to my computer which works fine - until I came across a couple of files having a rather odd image size.

All files, except a few have image size of 720 x 576, frame rate of 25:00 and Pixel Aspect Ration of 1.0940, according to Premiere Elements 13's File Properties - which is correct.

However, a few files shows up as image size 540 x 576, frame rate of 25:00 and Pixel Aspect Ration of 1.4587 and looks like they are in wide format, for some unknown reason.

My question is, would it be possible to reformat those files to the 720 x 576 image size, and if so - how can this be achieved.

Thanking you in advance,

Regards

[Steve Grisetti]

Using 4:3 video in a 16:9 project is, of course, possible -- but you have to decide how you want them to appear.

You can either place them in your project and have black on either side of the clip; or you can enlarge the video to fill the frame, in which case you'll cut off part of the top and bottom of your video.

But that said, you can certainly mix the formats in version 13. And how you do it depends on which of the two compromises you want to make.

[Bob]

That is really odd. The 720 x 576 footage is normal 4:3 PAL standard definition footage. But, the other (540 x 576) is definitely not standard 4:3 or 16:9 PAL footage. It is using a pixel aspect ratio close to that used by widescreen footage, but the number of horizontal pixels is wrong -- widescreen footage should still be 720 not 540. Both those clips should play back the same apparent size and both are essentially 4:3 frame aspect ratio. 720 x 1.094 = 787.68 and 540 x 1.4587 = 787.698. Theoretically, you should be able to mix these in a standard definition PAL project.

Using a standard definition PAL project, does the 540 x 576 footage look normal? Or, do the people and objects look like they are stretched or squished horizontally? If everything looks normal, you should be able to simply output your project to a standard definition PAL format.

[tedco]

Hi and thanks for your reply,

Oddly enough - the 540 x 576 does not look normal as people and objects look rather stretched and squashed, as you mentioned.

I am at a loss as how this happened, and only for a few files, as all other files are correct.

As mentioned, I have no idea if it is possible to reformat to normal 720 x 576 format without loosing aspect ratio, but must admit I am not too confident it is possible.

Unfortunately, I do not have the original footage any longer.

Any help is greatly appreciated and thanking you in advance

[Steve Grisetti]

Like Bob, I can't imagine what would create a 540x576 video. I'd assumed it was some version of 4:3, but the math doesn't work no matter which pixel ratio you apply. For one thing 540x576 implies that the video is taller than it is wide! Which at first made me wonder if it was cell phone footage -- but even then the math doesn't work because phones use square pixels and there's no way to factor 540x576 to get 720x1280 or 1080x1920, which is cell phone footage size.

I'm just really not sure what to recommend then. You can try right-clicking on the clip in the Project Assets panel and selecting the Interpret Footage option.

On the Interpret Footage screen, you can set the Pixel Aspect Ratio to Conform To and try a couple of different Pixel Aspect Ratio to see if that gets rid of the weird stretchiness you're seeing in the footage.

[Bob]

Unfortunately, the displayed width is a function of the pixel aspect ratio -- changing the pixel aspect ratio will change the displayed width. If the people look wider than they should be, you can scale the width down to make them look normal, but this will introduce transparency which will show up as black on the sides. If the people look too short, you can either scale up the width to make them look normal in which case you are cropping off some of the image, or you can scale down the height and introduce some transparency at the top and bottom.

You can try the Interpret footage panel as Steve suggested. If you don't find a pixel aspect ratio that works, you can scale the clip manually. If you don't constrain proportions, you can independently scale the width and height to make the image look normal.

To scale height and width independently to the following: Select the clip in the timeline and click the Applied Effects button. then expand the Motion effect in the Applied Effects panel, uncheck Constrain Proportions, and then drag the Scale Height and Scale Width sliders.

if the results are acceptable, you can export the scaled clip to a standard definition PAL file to make it 720x576. If you don't want the black bars, before exporting, move the clip to track 2 and place something on track 1 underneath to act as a background.

[tedco]

Hi Steve and Bob,

Thank you for all your help.

I did Interpret Footage as you suggested and found the D1/DV NTSC Widescreen 16:9 (1,2121) to be the most acceptable format, although I do end up with a black bar on both sides of the video - however, this is much more preferable than the widescreen squashed/stretched view and I can live this.

As with still photographs, a blurry picture is better than no photographs at all - especially if it has sentimental value.

The original footage was recorded back in 1993, on Hi-8 tapes (PAL system), then on to a VHS tape before dubbing from a vhs-tape recorder to a Sony hard disc recorder. I may inadvertently have set the wrong format, although I can't see how this would have been possible, as dubbing was a straight forward process - however, with computers one never seems to be surprised - or maybe some times we just have ten thumbs...

Thank you again for your help and support - BTW - what are your thoughts of upgrading from Version 13 to 14 - is it worth the money ?

Regards

[Steve Grisetti]

It's all about features, tedco. (Well, that and version 14 has fixed a couple of bugs and tuned-up the engine so that it runs a bit faster, in my experience.)

Have a look at the new features article link on the left side of this page and see if any of these features interest you. If not, stay with with you've got.
http://muvipix.com/pe14.php