Hello, Scott!

The masking is simple enough, create a mask in Microsoft Paint! Open Paint, set properties to 1600 cm X 900 cm. Measure the size(thickness) of your wanted border, choosing the thinnest line, select the line drawing tool and pull that along the top portion of your mask. Using the Selection tool(box with dotted line), cover a portion of that area, from the top of the mask to where the line's been drawn and, with Ctrl+C, copy that portion to "clipboard". Flip your mask vertically so that the drawn line is at the bottom, then, with Ctrl+V, paste the portion you've just copied, then drag it horizontally to the opposite side of your mask. fill(paint tin icon) with black or whichever is your preferred colour, the top and bottom portions, leaving the greater area in the centre as white. You've created your mask! Applying the mask in Power Director 12, drop the mask onto an overlay(PiP) track, select "modify" and with Chroma-Key, apply the "pippet" to the white area, making it transparent. The size should be automatic. If it is smaller than it should be on your preview screen, grab each diagonally-opposite corner with the mouse and drag it so the black bars cover the area you want to cover. Job done!

Cheers!

Neil.

Thanks Neil. Yes, I already have the masks for bars at top and bottom. What I am asking is if you can make the stabilized video not get zoomed in, and instead use letterboxing (black bars). My post explains it exactly.

If you were to stabilize a video, and use the masks for bars at the top, the stabilized portion of the video would still get zoomed in and fill the whole frame, (and then some would be covered by the bars). I am hoping you can rather use the otherwise wasted space where the bars are, and have it not get zoomed in after stabilization, and instead use letterboxing. This would preserve the video quality, by not zooming in to make up for the parts removed by stabilization.

Hi, again, Scott!

I think it depends on how much of the stabilising you apply(a bit of experimentation might be called for). I've also noticed a bit of zooming, but not too much, on some old Xmas videos I recently "rescued" from old VHS tapes when I applied the stabiliser. A bit of "tweaking" might get near enough to your wanted result.

Cheers!

Neil.

Hi Scott -

That cropping/zooming is just a fact of life when you're stabilising video. The greater the value you apply, the greater the zoom/crop.

It's not just PDR. Stabilising with Mercalli yields similar levels of crop/zoom.



Cheers - Tony
Visit PDtoots. PowerDirector Tutorials, tips, free resources & more. Subscribe!
Full linked Tutorial Catalog PDtoots happily supports fellow PowerDirector users!

I have seen excellent video stabilization done on YouTube. Just finished doing one myself on someone’s cell phone video where the entertainer sing and dance in a night club environment. The head constantly get chopped off and background tilted because the user had unsteady hands. The video clip is basically unwatchable. Apply stabilization and the entertainer will have no head showing.

The solution I used was to put a black color board in track 1, video in track 2, resize the video smaller to allow the subject's head to always remain on screen when stabilization is applied.

The produced video showed a steady background with the apparent video window moving up, down, tilts, left, and right with the background steady. That produced video is used in place of the original for further editing on the timeline such as adding titles.

This would be someting to consider if cropping and zooming is not desired with stabilization. There will be no loss in apparent resolution because the image is smaller and you can apply masks to the produced video if desired.

Yes, I am trying to figure out how you can stabilize without cropping and zooming in powerdirector 14. Then use letterboxing instead... Alternately if you could stabilize on just up and down movements and use letterboxing just at top and bottom of the frame.

Quote: Yes, I am trying to figure out how you can stabilize without cropping and zooming in powerdirector 14. Then use letterboxing instead... Alternately if you could stabilize on just up and down movements and use letterboxing just at top and bottom of the frame.

Hi Scott!

As Tony said, zooming/cropping might be unavoidable, but you could try Tomasc"s suggestion that may give at least a partial resoution to your problem. Please, keep is posted. I'm sure Tony(Ynotfish) and Tomasc will be interested in your outcome, as will I.

Cheers!

Neil.