Video aspect-ratio.

[lode]

Is it possible to make QT output the proper aspectratio?
It seems to me that all video is locked to 4:3 even if the videofile is in 16:9 format.

[Frank Kruse]

You can change the aspect-ratio in QTpro by holding shift-click and drag the lower right corner of the QTplayer.

Or check out qtsync.com.

frank.

[Polaris]

Speaking of aspect ratios, we routinely load DV files at 720x480 then resize them to 640x480 to have PT line double the picture on our second monitors BUT since we upgraded to Tiger and PT 7.2, PT seems to ignore the saved aspect ratio and display the file at its true size (720x480) once again.

Yes, we can reexport it at true 640x480 with Quicktime Pro but just resizing it used to work fine....anyone else experiencing the same thing? A friend tells me it changed going from QT 7.0 to 7.1.3 but I can't verify that.

Digi, any idea what's changed?

Cheers,
Polaris

PT 7.2cs1
QT 7.1.3
OSX 10.4.6

[Polaris]

For anyone interested in the issue I mentioned above....I found that QT 7.1.3 has a PRESENTATION flag that conforms the aspect ratio to a setting called CLEAN that was forcing PT to ignore the user defined aspect ratio and display a file at native size. If you set the PRESENTATION flag to CLASSIC and then resize the file to 640x480, PT will line double the picture as it used to. I wish we didn't have 4:3 monitors which made this a problem but such are the choices made at this studio (hey they saved $22 per monitor over the 16:9 ones... ) I hope that helps someone else out.

Cheers,
Polaris

[Taddy]

I'm having problem getting 16:9 aspect ratio happening in Pro Tools movie Window. Trouble is that Polaris seems to have it sorted but I don't quite understand what he means.

Can anyone (or Polaris) please explain exactly what he means here in layman teams to someone who has Quicktime Pro 7.1.3 and has absolutley no idea on the different quicktime formats (and why the hell there has to be so many).

Thanking you in advance!

[Taddy]

Hooray! I think I've worked it out. Here it is step by step on how to make that squished up 4:3 aspect ratio picture, thats suppose to be widescreen, 16:9 in the movie window.

1. Open the video file in Quicktime 7.1.3. (I think you may need Quicktime Pro. Not sure about that one.)
2. Go to Window > Show Movie Properties.
3. Select the name of your video file then "Presentation".
4. Set the "Conform aperture to Classic".
5. Select the "Video Track" and then visual settings.
6. Set the "Scale Size" to be a 16: 9 pixel size. (May need to untick "Preserve Ratio" if it's not a 16:9 ratio.) 1024 x 576 pixels works well accross a 17" monitor.
7. Close the "Properties" window and save the file.
8. Open it up in Pro Tools and it should come up as the size you set.

I've spent hours researching this to no avail. This is a bunch of self taught steps worked out mainly by trial an error. If anyone knows of any other way to acheive this, or these steps don't work for you, let me know.

[citysoundman]

Hey Polaris,
can you remind me of the line-double thing you mentioned? I remember hearing about this - something like you can start with a small video size and PT will let you double-size it on the fly (or is it the opposite?). Does it need to start at 640x480? I believe the idea is that you can resize the movie from within PT to quickly switch between full-size and half-size.

Thanks,
Bob

[Starcrash]

can you remind me of the line-double thing you mentioned?

If your second display is set to 640x480 and your movie is 320x240, you just click on the movie window and PT will automatically double the pixels to fill the screen. If you're working with only one display, you can resize the movie window using Cmd-Opt-Cntrl-click (smaller) and Opt-Cntrl-click (bigger) in the movie window (I never unsderstood why that function did not work with two displays). Finally, in 7.2 and beyond you can just Cntrl-click the movie window and you get all kinds of options, half-size, full-screen, etc.

[citysoundman]

Cool, thanks.

Will this work with the movie at 640x480 to begin with? It would be great to have a full screen original and then half-size it when need be.

Also does this technique only work at this particular size? I commonly use 720x480 from a DV stream.

[Starcrash]

Will this work with the movie at 640x480 to begin with?

Yes.

Also does this technique only work at this particular size? I commonly use 720x480 from a DV stream.

It works but you will get a bit hanging over into the edit window.