PD always fills the frame on two sides and will leave black bars along the other two edges if the media isn't exactly the same aspect ratio. Typically you'd use the PiP Designer to zoom in to fill the frame, or maybe levae the clip as-is and add a blurred backgound image or video to fill in the blank spaces.

Depending on how close the clip is to fitting, you can also try right-clicking on the clip and then try Set Clip Attributes > Set Aspect Ratio Settings and see if PD can automatically stretch it without messing up how it looks too badly.

You could also take a screenshot of the whole timeline + preview screeen so we could see your exact situation. Use Alt Print Screen or the Windows snipping tool (Win+Shift+S) then save the image as PNG or JPG. Click on the Attachments button below the forum's text box to upload and share it here.

Quote PD always fills the frame on two sides and will leave black bars along the other two edges if the media isn't exactly the same aspect ratio. Typically you'd use the PiP Designer to zoom in to fill the frame, or maybe levae the clip as-is and add a blurred backgound image or video to fill in the blank spaces.

Depending on how close the clip is to fitting, you can also try right-clicking on the clip and then try Set Clip Attributes > Set Aspect Ratio Settings and see if PD can automatically stretch it without messing up how it looks too badly.

You could also take a screenshot of the whole timeline + preview screeen so we could see your exact situation. Use Alt Print Screen or the Windows snipping tool (Win+Shift+S) then save the image as PNG or JPG. Click on the Attachments button below the forum's text box to upload and share it here.

Hi and thanks so much for your quick reply! I am not in the middle of a project so I have no screenshots to share yet, but I will in a week or so. I will try your suggestions though... Will let you know if it helps if you care to hear!

Thanks again!

Hi EV72 -

Your video clips don't happen to come from a Canon DSLR, do they? As optodata says, you'll get black bars if the video clips' AR doesn't match the project's AR exactly.

Some Canon DSLRs shoot full HD at 1920x1088, which is 8px taller that 1920x1080 (16:9). The result is often 4px bars on each side of the screen.



I usually just (slightly) resize them to take out the black bars.

Cheers - Tony
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Quote Hi EV72 -

Your video clips don't happen to come from a Canon DSLR, do they? As optodata says, you'll get black bars if the video clips' AR doesn't match the project's AR exactly.

Some Canon DSLRs shoot full HD at 1920x1088, which is 8px taller that 1920x1080 (16:9). The result is often 4px bars on each side of the screen.



I usually just (slightly) resize them to take out the black bars.

Cheers - Tony

Hi Tony! And yes, you are exactly correct on this! I have a Canon DSLR camera. This is definitely what is happening. I used to be able to just go into each clip and add a fade in and out and PD12 would fit it to size, but now with 365 that workaround doesn't seem to work. What I did recently was just render my whole video, then render it again with a slight zoom in. This way I didn't have to resize a bunch of different individual clips.

Thanks again. I now feel like I know exactly WHY this has beeen happening!

Cheers...
Dave

Hi,

I've just found that, even though the aspect ratio shown under the preview screen says 16:9, I went to -

EDIT > ASPECT RATIO - and the dropdown list was set to 360. Once I checked 16:9 the black side bars were gone and the screen was filled properly.