Announcement: Our new CyberLink Feedback Forum has arrived! Please transfer to our new forum to provide your feedback or to start a new discussion. The content on this CyberLink Community forum is now read only, but will continue to be available as a user resource. Thanks!
CyberLink Community Forum
where the experts meet
| Advanced Search >
How to crop ENTIRE video, not a "portion"?
tspnyc2013 [Avatar]
Newbie Location: Brooklyn, NY you gotta prob'm wi'dat? Joined: Jan 18, 2013 13:56 Messages: 23 Offline
[Post New]
Figured out how to find and use Power Tools to crop. But the zoom only applies to one clip. How can I say use the same crop for other or all clips in the video? I mean I can eyeball it and try to make them match, but I am unable to actually get the exact same result.

Also, Is there a way to "letter box" it? I am shooting samples of acoustic guitars. If I use the crop to remove the intruding face of the guitarist, I lose so much on the sides that I cannot see the entire guitar. Is there a way to crop outside of the normal aspect ratio, or if not, is there a way to add a letter box that will black out the top and bottom while leaving the sides long enough?
ynotfish
Senior Contributor Location: N.S.W. Australia Joined: May 08, 2009 02:06 Messages: 9977 Offline
[Post New]
Hi -

There are all sorts of possibilities for what you're trying to do, but some screen shots & more information would be needed.

Using Video Crop, you can only crop to the same aspect ratio as your project, but you can easily mask out part of the image... it depends what you want on the final screen. Are you happy to have black bits? or are you planning on having multiple clips/images on the screen?

"the intruding face of the guitarist"

Cheers - Tony
Visit PDtoots. PowerDirector Tutorials, tips, free resources & more. Subscribe!
Full linked Tutorial Catalog
PDtoots happily supports fellow PowerDirector users!
tspnyc2013 [Avatar]
Newbie Location: Brooklyn, NY you gotta prob'm wi'dat? Joined: Jan 18, 2013 13:56 Messages: 23 Offline
[Post New]
Thanks for the quick reply.

In this case, no. The clips are really all the same 24 min clip, but my video camera was accidentally set to chop it into 5 min increments.

It is about 24 minutes of video in total. I need to add a hi def wav file, synch it up with the video, then cut the video down to about 4 minutes.

So I can actually wait to do the crop or mask, or both until the 4 min video is made, now that I think of it, and just reload the "produced" 4 min video, and crop THAT.

But for future reference I would like to know how to mask and or crop different clips along the same time line and have them all end up with the same mask or crop.


ynotfish
Senior Contributor Location: N.S.W. Australia Joined: May 08, 2009 02:06 Messages: 9977 Offline
[Post New]
Quote: So I can actually wait to do the crop or mask, or both until the 4 min video is made, now that I think of it, and just reload the "produced" 4 min video, and crop THAT.


You've answered your own question. That's how you'd do it...

Do all your editing > Produce > Crop the produced file > Produce to same format & profile.

You can't apply the same crop to multiple clips, except by "eyeballing" (as you said). If you apply the same mask or overlay to each clip (which you can do), you end up with black bits, which isn't what you're after.

If you crop, as you're doing, you'd get something like the image below. If you mask or use an overlay, that washed out space would be black.



Cheers - Tony
[Thumb - Crop_Guitarist.png]
 Filename
Crop_Guitarist.png
[Disk]
 Description
 Filesize
203 Kbytes
 Downloaded:
649 time(s)

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Mar 31. 2013 00:52


Visit PDtoots. PowerDirector Tutorials, tips, free resources & more. Subscribe!
Full linked Tutorial Catalog
PDtoots happily supports fellow PowerDirector users!
Cranston
Senior Contributor Location: USA Joined: Aug 17, 2007 02:26 Messages: 1667 Offline
[Post New]
Quote: How can I say use the same crop for other or all clips in the video? I mean I can eyeball it and try to make them match, but I am unable to actually get the exact same result.

Hi tsnypc2013,

Perhaps I’m misunderstanding here. But will still take this opportunity to once again opine on one of my PD pet peeves that I “think” is along the lines of what you're asking. The moderator or the Gold Coast can remove this reply if deemed… off topic.

But… I think member “tspnyc2013” basically means…
How can we save our custom made VideoCrop parameters, and then apply those “exact” same Crop parameters to all or any of our clips?
(Kind of like how one can Save a custom made Motion Path in PIP Designer.)

The answer is… currently we can’t.
And it’s also frustrating that every time one opens Video Crop, or Magic Motion, that the default crop border box always presents itself at a different random size/position, at both the first and last key frame.
And once you get your crop just right (whether static or for a Start and Stop position), there’s NO way to save those custom parameters so that we can easily apply the exact same custom crops to our other images/clips farther down the timeline.
VideoCrop and MagicMotion should have the option to SAVE those custom made crops, so that they can be re-applied.
Or at the very least, the default crop box should always default to the actual and exact full screen parameters when, opening Video Crop and Magic Motion.

I, and I believe others, have for a long time now requested this ability to somehow Save our custom crop parameters in VC and MM (just as a custom Save is available in other PD rooms like PIP Designer). But, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see if a MM and VC custom crop Save feature, will be added/available, in PD12. Hope so.

____________________________________________________________________________________

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Mar 31. 2013 04:57

Click here PDtoots for a collection of PowerDirector Tutorials and Tips
ynotfish
Senior Contributor Location: N.S.W. Australia Joined: May 08, 2009 02:06 Messages: 9977 Offline
[Post New]
Hear Hear!

I'll vote for that.



I'd also vote for the default first keyframe in Video Crop & Magic Motion to be at FULL ZOOM OUT.

Cheers - Tony
[Thumb - SuggestionBox.png]
 Filename
SuggestionBox.png
[Disk]
 Description
 Filesize
54 Kbytes
 Downloaded:
651 time(s)

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Mar 31. 2013 04:41


Visit PDtoots. PowerDirector Tutorials, tips, free resources & more. Subscribe!
Full linked Tutorial Catalog
PDtoots happily supports fellow PowerDirector users!
tspnyc2013 [Avatar]
Newbie Location: Brooklyn, NY you gotta prob'm wi'dat? Joined: Jan 18, 2013 13:56 Messages: 23 Offline
[Post New]
Hi. It is not exactly what I mean, but yes that would be GREAT.

But weirdly, I no longer have PowerTools available.

I had it yesterday. I saved the project as a different project, applied a different wav as the sound track, but when I select a clip I no longer see the options I did yesterday, that included Power Tools.(???)

Very weird. But I cannot find PowerTools anywhere to choose crop.

And I still cannot find anywhere that has a plain black mask, just a bunch of silly nonsense overlay stuff for little kids I guess.

Yesterday, I would click on a clip on the time line and somehow I got Power Tools to show directly above the timeline (below the preview monitor and media file library. Today it does not happen!

http://img703.imageshack.us/img703/1210/pdpowertools2.jpg

[Thumb - pdpowertools2.JPG]
 Filename
pdpowertools2.JPG
[Disk]
 Description
 Filesize
66 Kbytes
 Downloaded:
174 time(s)
ynotfish
Senior Contributor Location: N.S.W. Australia Joined: May 08, 2009 02:06 Messages: 9977 Offline
[Post New]
Hi again -

Sometimes, elements of the GUI will go AWOL like that. Usually, they're still present - just not visible. Have you tried (a) wiggling the cursor over different sections of the workspace or (b) clicking in parts of the workspace with missing buttons etc?

You'll find the plain masks in PiP Designer under "Mask" (see attached).

Also - you can make any sort of overlay you like in separate graphics software. So far, I haven't really been able to work out the "look" you're after.

Cheers - Tony
[Thumb - Modify - Mask.png]
 Filename
Modify - Mask.png
[Disk]
 Description
 Filesize
230 Kbytes
 Downloaded:
151 time(s)

Visit PDtoots. PowerDirector Tutorials, tips, free resources & more. Subscribe!
Full linked Tutorial Catalog
PDtoots happily supports fellow PowerDirector users!
SimonW [Avatar]
Newbie Joined: Mar 25, 2013 13:48 Messages: 22 Offline
[Post New]
I havent read all the posts here but I had a similar problem where my old video camera said it was doing 16:9 but actually did 4:3 with black borders to and bottom. Did all my editing then just resized the timeline it before producing it by dragging the size bars in teh big editing window top right of the screen. Didnt do anything with individual clips - this did it for everything on the timeline.

Simon PowerDirector 12 Build 2420
Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64 bit
Dell Studio XPS 7100 AMD Phenom II x6 1035T 2.6Ghz with 8 Gb RAM
ATI Radeon HD 5770 video card graphics card
Hauppauge Colossus capture card and "Capture" software
Dafydd B [Avatar]
Senior Contributor Joined: Aug 26, 2006 08:20 Messages: 11973 Offline
[Post New]
Hi,
I don't think anything needs to be removed from the thread. Saving a crop's parameters has already been mentioned to CyberLink.
GUI failure to display. It would be useful to have a diagnostic of the system playing up/gpu data mainly.
Forum Moderator
rytis [Avatar]
Member Joined: May 05, 2013 20:52 Messages: 82 Offline
[Post New]
is there any way to crop the width of the video more than the height? or just the width for that matter? I'm doing it in power tools/crop section.
wjr002 [Avatar]
Member Location: Kingscliff, Australia Joined: Jun 29, 2011 20:22 Messages: 117 Offline
[Post New]
I'll ditto the suggestion on saving a crop and applying it to multiple clips but add the suggestion to be able to multiply select clips (either by ctrl + click or by grouping or both) and apply the same (almost) anything to it with the same settings. PD12 Ultimate Suite (upgrade from PD11 Ultimate). PhotoDirector 5. PowerDVD13. YouCam 5.
ynotfish
Senior Contributor Location: N.S.W. Australia Joined: May 08, 2009 02:06 Messages: 9977 Offline
[Post New]
Hi rytis (not ignoring you, wjr002) -

Using video crop is restricted to the aspect ratio of the project... so that won't meet your needs if you want to "crop the width of the video more than the height".

You can apply a mask without being restricted by the aspect ratio, because it can be unchecked in PiP Designer.



Cheers - Tony
[Thumb - Crop_Mask.png]
 Filename
Crop_Mask.png
[Disk]
 Description
 Filesize
460 Kbytes
 Downloaded:
457 time(s)

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Jun 10. 2013 22:53


Visit PDtoots. PowerDirector Tutorials, tips, free resources & more. Subscribe!
Full linked Tutorial Catalog
PDtoots happily supports fellow PowerDirector users!
Dafydd B [Avatar]
Senior Contributor Joined: Aug 26, 2006 08:20 Messages: 11973 Offline
[Post New]
Quote: is there any way to crop the width of the video more than the height? or just the width for that matter? I'm doing it in power tools/crop section.

Hi rytis
Your new question should be posted as a NEW TOPIC and you could add in your thread a reference link to this thread. http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/jforum.page?module=posts&action=insert&forum_id=110

Please read the guide: http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/24769.page

Thread locked.

Forum Moderator
Powered by JForum 2.1.8 © JForum Team