cropping a video

[llRekcusll]

I want to take a 4:3 video and crop it to be 16:9. Like I actually want to delete a little bit of the top and a little bit of the bottom, and replace what I deleted with black bars. I need to do this to a few vids to make them all line up when i join them together.

I use adobe premiere elements, but any advice would help (I can dl another program if you think I should)

Thanks guys

[guns1inger]

To take NTSC 4:3 video and convert it to 16:9 you would delete 60 lines form the top, and 60 from the bottom, then stretch it back to 480 lines. To make it 4:3 letterbox, which is what you are after, you would crop 60 lines from the top, 60 from the bottom, and then replace them with black bars.

In Virtualdub this is very simple with the resize filter. In Premiere it is probably easier to just mask the top and bottom with a black panel, however you would have to consult your manual for details on the process.

Be aware, however, that unless the video was shot knowing that you were going to do this, you may find that the results of a straight crop (or mask) may not be what you really want. Most people try to fill the frame when shooting video. Cropping the top 60 lines off the video usually results in removing heads and other details. To avoid this, you usually have to mask out the area of the bars, then using keyframes, move the video around inside the remaining frame to keep the important details in the visible area. This is time consuming to do correctly.