Hi, Stan.

To my experience, later model non-widescreen TVs use a letterbox effect to display a 16:9 image. You probably know that a letterbox is a black band at the top and bottom of the screen leaving a 16:9 aspect ratio space between the bands within which a wide-screen image is played without the distortion caused by changing a video's aspect ratio.

I'm new to PowerDirector, so I'm trying to learn all the curves and wrinkles of the program, too. I would think the only other way of converting a 16:9 aspect ration to a 4:3 aspect ration (without distortion) would be to somehow lop off the ends of the widescreen image. If you figure that one out, please give me a holler and clue me in. too.

Good luck.
Paul

Quote: Hi, Stan.

To my experience, later model non-widescreen TVs use a letterbox effect to display a 16:9 image. You probably know that a letterbox is a black band at the top and bottom of the screen leaving a 16:9 aspect ratio space between the bands within which a wide-screen image is played without the distortion caused by changing a video's aspect ratio.

I'm new to PowerDirector, so I'm trying to learn all the curves and wrinkles of the program, too. I would think the only other way of converting a 16:9 aspect ration to a 4:3 aspect ration (without distortion) would be to somehow lop off the ends of the widescreen image. If you figure that one out, please give me a holler and clue me in. too.

Good luck.
Paul

In Powerdirector 11 if you have 16:9 images, select 4:3 Aspect Ratio (on top of interface). Select your image, look on top of the timeline, there is Crop Image button, that opens a crop screen where you can select the area (resizeable) you wish to crop or keep.

Only works on Images, does not work on Video, there is another function for cropping Videos, Power Tools > Video Crop.
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Thanks. If you have a video slideshow maker, this will help you solve the issue with ease. Kvisoft Flash Slideshow Software could solve it.

Quote: Thanks. If you have a video slideshow maker, this will help you solve the issue with ease. Kvisoft Flash Slideshow Software could solve it.

Eneay,
you have 4 posts on this forum, all point to the same alternative software. You are perilously close to being considered a "spammer". HP Envy Phoenix/4thGen i7-4770(4@3.4GHz~turbo>3.9)
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Quote: You are perilously close to being considered a "spammer".

Already there in my book!

Re the OP - I like to create a 'pretty' background and just display the images over them preserving the 16:9 aspect ratio.

(edit to correct a quote tag error)

Thanks for the tips everyone.

To recapitulate, my problem was my 16:9 PowerDirector 11 slideshow, consisting of mostly pictures, was coming out with horizontally squished images when creating a DVD formatted as "Regular Display (4:3)". This was on an older non-widescreen TV. If I produced a Widescreen DVD it looked perfect on a widescreen TV.
After some experimentation the following process worked:
1. Changed my project from 16:9 to 4:3
2. Remove images from the slideshow one at a time, leaving a gap in the timeline
3. Add the same image back into the timeline. Re-adding an image back into the timeline, PowerDirector formats the image with what I think is a 4:3 aspect ratio.
4. Do 2 and 3 for all images in the timeline.

When I produced a "Regular Display (4:3)" DVD with this 4:3 project it now produced a DVD that looks great (non-squished) on older non-widescreen TVs.
This is kind of a tedious process because I had about 100 images in my slideshow. I guess what I did here was basically created the project anew as if I had started with a 4:3 project to begin with. I had to re-add my transitions between images since they are lost when you delete an image. The good thing about this method is I was just removing and re-adding back images in the order I had already decided upon.
Anyway, there has got to be a better more efficient way of doing this, but it worked for now. I saved my 4:3 project under a different name and now I have two projects (a 4:3 and a 16:9) that I need to both update if I decided to make a change.
Again, perhaps there is a better way to do this.
Thanks

I'd do this sort of image cropping/re-sizing in a very well known shareware app that works brilliantly. Just did a 1200 image timelapse with very little input from me apart from the initial setup of the crop area. Goes without saying that to do this the cropped area has to be the same for all images.

Just to round out this discussion, any "cropping" done on a video segment retains the chosen aspect ratio so that if a narrower image is desired, the image will also become shorter. A simple change in aspect ration will distort the image.

Does anyone know of a trick to, perhaps, black out the ends of a video before final formatting (thereby eliminating unwanted details on the periphery without losing detail in the other dimension)?

My brute force way of thinking is to simply create two Black vertical rectangular boxes.

Add them to the timeline. Make sure they cover either side of the preview window. Stretch them out fully in the timeline tracks to include the entire video clip. Not really a true 4:3 and might not won't work too well if you are using the slideshow creator for pictures.

Your mileage may vary, tweak to fit.

Rob
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