Correcting Undesirable Side Effects of Rotation Filter

[Zeek]

I'm working on editing some shoddiness out of a few of the clips from my brothers wedding and would like some input on this here scenario, if anyone has the time.

Problem: During the ceremony the camera person unfortunately did not take the time to correct a problem with the tripod, resulting in an oblique camera angle that just looks shi**y and is shown in this picture right here:



It's not the end of the world, but obviously not ideal and so I tried doing some correcting with V-Dub's rotation2 filter set to 2x2, bilinear. Results were as expected but, for some odd reason, look better (to me, at least) when shown in Window$ Media Player than in a "normal" player capable of doing a bit more with aspect ratios - like Power DVD. Pictures will offer a better explanation than words can provide, so here they are. First, Windows Media Player:


And then Power DVD:


Notice here that the backlight is now straight which, IMHO, damn sure looks better than the other one. More importantly, however, see how WMP shapes the display field into sort of a rhomboidal shape? This is again not perfect by any means but, to me at least, it certainly looks a little bit better (artsy, even?) than the lopped off and turned-on-its-side square that Power DVD is displaying. Past experience tells me that what Power DVD is displaying is what I'm going to get in terms of a final DVD product, assuming I leave it the way it is now. And so my questions are:

1. Is there a way to reproduce the effect (or a similar or better one) in Power DVD/on the final DVD as is shown here with Windows Media Player?

-or-

2. Is there a better way to handle this? Cropping, maybe?

At the end of the day, I just want the damned video to look like it was shot straight. If, during the cleanup, I can somehow manage to turn visual disadvantage into advantage, then great. I realize that last one's probably a tall order, considering my source. But what the hell. It never hurts to ask.

Thanks and regards,

Z

[Zeek]

Sorry...looks like my images failed to load for whatever reason. Will re-post them momentarily.

[Zeek]

Here's the original problem.

[Zeek]

And the (sort of desirable) effect created by WMP:

[Zeek]

And finally, the box on it's side effect that I'm trying to hide - given away by Power DVD.

And sorry for my sloppy posting.



Thanks again, all...

[jagabo]

I'm not sure what you mean. You want something like this?

[Zeek]

Yeah, pretty much. Although I'm not sure how you would get it to appear that way without altering display size a bit. If this is doable, then great and please tell me how I should go about it.

If, on the other hand, I do need to mess with stretching (and therefore aspect ratio) a bit as a result of cropping AND that cropping has the potential for messing the rest of the movie up later (not sure if it will) - I was thinking it might be better to take the hit and show some black border a little to avoid that. And black border/tilted background isn't the end of the world, by the way. I'd just prefer to avoid that square-on-it's-side look, if I end up tolerating it at all.

I hope I'm being clear here (think I topped out at about 4 hours sleep/night this whole week). If not, just kick me and I'll repost some other, more English-type jibberish.

[jagabo]

Most of the angled black border will be hidden by overscan when watched on TV. Try burning to a DVD and taking a look.

You'll have to rotate, crop, and resize to get a final result like in my picture. Obviously you'll have to handle this scene differently than others in the video but if your final result is the same frame size as the rest of the footage you won't have any trouble integrating it.

Here's the filter sequence I used in VirtualDubMPEG2:



The Null Transform is there just for cropping.

Note that I took one of the images you posted and resized it to 720x480 assuming that is what it started out as.

[Zeek]

Thanks. I'll try the filters now. (Never messed with null transform before, so it'll be interesting.)

Also, if I can avoid any magnification during re-sizing, that'd be ideal too.

In any case, that'll put me well on my way. Thanks for your replies, and Happy New Year.

[jagabo]

Also, if I can avoid any magnification during re-sizing, that'd be ideal too.

There's no way to avoid enlarging if you want to keep the original frame size and not have any visible border from the rotation.

Here's an alternate filter sequence:



I enlarged the image first to 800x534, rotated by 6 degrees without the "expand frame to fit" option, then cropped back down to 720x480. A small amount of the background is still visible (I used bright red as the fill color to make it more obvious.) in the corners but you won't see this on TV.

The Null Transform filter does nothing -- it's there simply for cropping. VirtualDub's cropping has to be attached to a filter.

[Zeek]

Sweet. There's my answer.

And thank you again...