Windows Movie Maker - importing JPG's for slideshow - images are cropped

[garybeck]

I'm creating a video with Windows Movie Maker. Part of the video is a slideshow, originating from JPG images. The problem is, WMM is cropping the photos.

The images are all 1600 x 1200 pixels. That reduces to 4x3.

The final output is NTSC (4x3) so there should be no problem right?

Well it seems WMM just likes to crop it anyway. It looks like the bottom and both sides are cropped a bit, like you 'zoomed' into the photo. even though you keep the same aspect ratio, 3 out of 4 sides are cropped.

the crazy thing is the photos show correctly in the WMM preview screen. it's the output that has the cropped photos.

edited to add:::
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well on futher investigation, i may have found the problem but not the solution.

i'm using WMM to create an AVI file and then Sonic MyDVD to burn the AVI to DVD.

on the Windows Movie Maker screen where I'm choosing the output, it says for the AVI, the display size is 720x480, but the aspect ratio is 4x3. now I'm confused. what's the difference between display size and aspect ratio? I guess that might be my problem.
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it's a problem because I created a bunch of JPG "slides" that have text on them, and the text is getting cut off on many of them.

Is there any way to prvent this? I looked in all the preferences, couldn't find anything.

The only thing I can do at this point is go through all my photos and edit them all over again, and add a border around them all which will just get cut off by WMM... Unless anyone here has a better idea?

thanks
gary in vermont

[thecoalman]

the crazy thing is the photos show correctly in the WMM preview screen. it's the output that has the cropped photos.

If it's when you view it on a TV that they become cropped then it's the overscan area of a TV, this is normal.

on the Windows Movie Maker screen where I'm choosing the output, it says for the AVI, the display size is 720x480, but the aspect ratio is 4x3. now I'm confused. what's the difference between display size and aspect ratio? I guess that might be my problem.

That would not be the problem either, the aspect and resolution have no relevance to each other. Even 16:9 uses 720x480 for either DV-AVI or DVD compliant MPEG. The aspect is adjusted by the DVD player or the software paler you are using accordingly. Note that if you're playing a file some players don't respect the aspect flag in some files.

[garybeck]

clarification.

it looks like the problem is not WMM. the AVI file it output is not cropped.

to continue down the path... I'm importing the AVI into Sonic MyDVD, which seems like a not very good product but it's all I have and I'm broke. It seems to work OK otherwise.

anyway, when I import the AVI file to Sonic, it still looks OK in the preview.

and, I watched the finished DVD on my computer with InterVideo DVD player, and it's not cropped!

so, the problem is either on the TV or on the DVD player.

?!?!?!?!?!?

[garybeck]

If it's when you view it on a TV that they become cropped then it's the overscan area of a TV, this is normal.

what is meant by "normal?" I noticed the DVD plays OK on a computer but it's cropped either by the TV or the standalone DVD player. what's causing it and how do I fix it?

[thecoalman]

A certain percentage of a video signal played on a TV is in the overscan area which is not visible on a TV.

http://www.digitalfaq.com/dvdguides/capture/understandsource.htm#overscan

You have to put your titles in this area. Leave about a 25 px gap between the titles and the edges of the image.

[Cornucopia]

Starting from scratch again do this:

Take all your 1600x1200 pix and run them each through Photoshop with these steps--
1. Image Resize to 640x480 (resampling w/Bicubic)
2. (Padding out) Canvas resize to 720x540, centered, w/Black bkgd
3. Image Resize to 720x480 (resampling, w/Bicubic, NO constraints)
4. Save as TIFF, PNG, BMP, or other good uncompressed format.

Load those into WMM, etc. They'll be the correct Aspect Ratio (4:3) and size, and will have everything in the safe area (on screen EVEN on TV).

You could do something similar with the saved AVI in Virtualdub or AVISynth (before compressing to MPEG for DVD), but this would be higher quality (as the source is higher quality to begin with).

Scott

[garybeck]

Starting from scratch again do this:

Take all your 1600x1200 pix and run them each through Photoshop with these steps--
1. Image Resize to 640x480 (resampling w/Bicubic)
2. (Padding out) Canvas resize to 720x540, centered, w/Black bkgd
3. Image Resize to 720x480 (resampling, w/Bicubic, NO constraints)
4. Save as TIFF, PNG, BMP, or other good uncompressed format.

Load those into WMM, etc. They'll be the correct Aspect Ratio (4:3) and size, and will have everything in the safe area (on screen EVEN on TV).

You could do something similar with the saved AVI in Virtualdub or AVISynth (before compressing to MPEG for DVD), but this would be higher quality (as the source is higher quality to begin with).

Scott

thanks very much i'll try that and let everyone know how it goes.

[garybeck]

Starting from scratch again do this:


1. Image Resize to 640x480 (resampling w/Bicubic)
2. (Padding out) Canvas resize to 720x540, centered, w/Black bkgd
3. Image Resize to 720x480 (resampling, w/Bicubic, NO constraints)

I tried this on a few. Won't the various resizing steps end up stretching things a bit (changing the hxw ratio)?

One thing I forgot to mention. I want to make this video output in two formats - one for DVD and also a lower resolution version for web viewing. Is that possible? Or do I need to make two completely different versions from scratch? I hope not...

[mats.hogberg]

If you're using WMM, once you're finished, save one version as DV video, and one as low res, low bitrate wmv.
The DV is then reencoded (with some mpg encoder outside WMM) to mpg and authored as DVD. The wmv goes straight to your web site.

/Mats

[Cornucopia]

Starting from scratch again do this:


1. Image Resize to 640x480 (resampling w/Bicubic)
2. (Padding out) Canvas resize to 720x540, centered, w/Black bkgd
3. Image Resize to 720x480 (resampling, w/Bicubic, NO constraints)

I tried this on a few. Won't the various resizing steps end up stretching things a bit (changing the hxw ratio)?

One thing I forgot to mention. I want to make this video output in two formats - one for DVD and also a lower resolution version for web viewing. Is that possible? Or do I need to make two completely different versions from scratch? I hope not...

1600x1200 is 4:3 (assuming square pixels)
640x480 is 4:3 (assuming square pixels)
720x540 is 4:3 (assuming square pixels)
720x480 is 4:3 (assuming non-square NTSC pixels)--the final, displayed AR is the same.

Everything's good going this way--trust me. You're really only doing 2 "stretches" and both of them are in the downward direction resolutionwise. This will retain the quality. It will also give just a touch of vertical blur which is actually needed for interlaced playback in order to avoid line twitter.

and I agree with mats, export twice.

....although...

You may want to NOT have the extra titlesafe padding for the web clips, in which case, you'll need to go back to your original WMM timeline and export the web wmv there.

Scott