Black areas either side of my video in my playback window

[Frank Sebem]

Hi all

New here so please go easy guys…

So, most videos I make… when I load them in to VSDC there are Black spaces to the left and right of the video (in the playback window). Obviously this is there by default. I have done a bit of reading about and sort of come to the conclusion that if you make the video when it is landscape then the black spaces won’t be there. however, in some cases, it is just not possible to have the video in landscape, especially when I’m taking video clips from lots of different occasions when I’ve caught clips spontaneously in portrait mode.

any advice guys?

[Frank Sebem]

So, what I am doing is making a music video featuring me and my mates on holiday in various poses. The video is made up of a music track. No problems there. Some text. No problems there. So, now I want to add in loads of PHOTOS (that were taken in portrait mode on my iPhone). As soon as I import a photo(s) the playback window shows my photo etc but with the ugly Black bars either side.

[TreeTops]

The black bars are the result of taking photos/video in portrait mode which you seem to know. You can't eliminate those unless you use a photo program or video program to modify the size of the portrait stuff. It's a lot of work, that's why you see thousands of youtube videos done in portrait mode with black bars.

And I consider that portrait stuff unprofessional.

[Sharc]

In order to view portrait pics (9:16) from a mobile phone on a landscape (TV) monitor (16:9) without borders one has to rotate the TV by 90 degrees, unless one likes horizontally stretched pictures ("fat people")

[Cornucopia]

Yes, there is no getting around these constraints. Like the square peg/round hole, you have these options:

1. Leave the black bars (letterbox or pillarbox, depending on which direction you're going) as they are.
2. Alternately, add a background layer of something else behind the main image (most common these days is a blurred, zoomed & cropped duplicate of the image) to cover the black.
3. Stretch to fill (which makes circles into ovals and squares into rectangles, and people into ?), linearly, or possibly with gradations of variable stretch.
4. Zoom & crop, losing some of the image, and some of the quality.

Pick (at least) one of those.


Scott

[Frank Sebem]

Fair play. Thanks to all who broke the bad/realistic news to me.
Cheers!

[lollo]

In order to view portrait pics (9:16) from a mobile phone on a landscape (TV) monitor (16:9) without borders one has to rotate the TV by 90 degrees, unless one likes horizontally stretched pictures ("fat people")

[Alwyn]

No bad news here. The resolution of most stills (and video) from phones these days allows lots of zooming without losing too much quality. I'm not familiar with VSDC but see if it has a crop or zoom function for each image/video. You could zoom in, as per Scott's point 4, to fill the normal 16:9 screen. To demonstrate, in my Magix editor:

When imported:

[Attachment 77961 - Click to enlarge]

After cropping/zooming:

[Attachment 77962 - Click to enlarge]

[Cornucopia]

Yes, stills are often of such higher rez, that the effective detail when zoomed in (& cropped) is equivalent to what was expected, for video.
And that is one of the benefits of shooting videos at 4k or higher, because then you can apply those same operations without obvious apparent loss.
I guess it depends on whether the OP shot at such high rez as to make it acceptable.


Scott

[Secoast]

Yes, stills are often of such higher rez, that the effective detail when zoomed in (& cropped) is equivalent to what was expected, for video.
And that is one of the benefits of shooting videos at 4k or higher, because then you can apply those same operations without obvious apparent loss.
I guess it depends on whether the OP shot at such high rez as to make it acceptable.


Scott

Also, the landscape image Alwyn exampled benefits from cropping to a landscape AR. People shot (in portrait mode) may not be so adaptable to such significant cropping, particularly with video where the camera is not always held steadily.

[Frank Sebem]

Wow. Brilliant advice peeps. Thank you.