iMovie problem with 352x480 video

[Garibaldi]

A friend of mine is working on a video project of his, and I've been trying to give him a hand with it, but he's had many problems. First off the dvds (his home videos) from which he's taking the video sometimes have a timecode break error, and so he has to reencode all of the files. On top of that when iMovie imports the .vobs they don't have any sound because they have ac3 audio. So to get around this I had him convert the vobs to dv video and then import it. Unfortunatley dv is huge and thus I had him save it as 352x480 to save every last ounce of space. Unfortunately he still ran out of space. Now I went to help him today and the clips that he imported from the dv file (after he has done much editing work on them) are all shrunk in the middle with black bars. Normally with 352x480 the video program would just expand it out, but not in this case. Is there any way to fix this in iMovie so he can have the clips look like they should without big black bars on either side?

[terryj]

How about going back a few steps, to when he had vobs,
and using ffmpegx to create 352 x 240 movie files,
and from there, import the movie files into iMovie?
Using Best bitrate on the files, it should create small
enough movie files for import, then he can export
out as DV to Compressor to remake DVDs.....?

[Garibaldi]

How about going back a few steps, to when he had vobs,
and using ffmpegx to create 352 x 240 movie files,
and from there, import the movie files into iMovie?
Using Best bitrate on the files, it should create small
enough movie files for import, then he can export
out as DV to Compressor to remake DVDs.....?

That is a definite possibility that he could try. Unfortunately he's spent alot of time already (I didn't know he had this problem until now) cutting up the clip into the different parts that he wants... it would be best if there is a way to fix it from this point so he doesn't have to do all of this work over again. Is that possible?

Thanks alot!

[live4ever]

Mpeg Streamclip will make simple cuts to the vobs preserving the ac3 audio all without encoding to dv thus saving space.

If your friend needs to add fancy titles or transitions then iMovie is needed however.

The Mpeg2 QT component is required though.

edit-Streamclip will also fix the timecode breaks quickly too, it is an invaluable tool IMO when working with mpeg sourced footage especially with ac3 audio.

[Garibaldi]

Mpeg Streamclip will make simple cuts to the vobs preserving the ac3 audio all without encoding to dv thus saving space.

If your friend needs to add fancy titles or transitions then iMovie is needed however.

The Mpeg2 QT component is required though.

edit-Streamclip will also fix the timecode breaks quickly too, it is an invaluable tool IMO when working with mpeg sourced footage especially with ac3 audio.

Yep, I had him use Mpeg StreamClip for encoding the vob to dv in the first place- it is such a invaluable tool like you said. Unfortunately he does want to have some transitions in the video so he will probably have to use iMovie. Is there then a way (someone had mentioned zooming to me) in iMovie to correct this black bar problem directly since that is where he has the clipped files? And I've installed the mpeg2 QT plugin for him too BTW.

[markatisu]

EDIT: I saw someone had already posted this suggestion, sorry

[Have you tried removing the timecode errors in Streamclip, I have found that if you run FIX Timecode Errors it will make the resulting mpg file work flawlessly in DVDSP3]