Quote: Simple question: Can I free form crop a video? That is, can I crop my video to any height/width ratio instead of the forced/fixed ratio of 4:3 or 16:9.

I simply want to display small section of the video area. I don't want to zoom to that area or stretch the video to fill the frame, I simply want to crop an area of the video and have the rest of the frame be black.

Possible in PowerDirector 12?

Add a black color panel to the main track, add the video to an overlay track and adjust the size the way you want it. You may have to sp0lit the original video to have just that part of the video being resized. .
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Hi macrofoto.

The easiest way to do what you're looking for - to show a freeform rectangle without any zoom or pan - is to create a mask with the window size you want and place that on the timeline track below your desired clip. You can use an existing PiP object, download something from Director Zone, or make your own using any graphics/drawing program and import it into the PiP Object Room.

In the PD12 help box, search for mask and see the instructions for Adding PiP Masks. There are also many helpful tutorials here.

YouTube/optodata

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Hi macrofoto -

Steve & optodata are pointing you the right way. In PD, you can only crop a video in the same aspect ratio as the project.

Using an overlay, as Steve suggests, or optodata's masking idea, is the way to go.

By unchecking "Maintain Aspect Ratio" in PiP Designer > Masks, you can show any porion of the video you wish (& hide the rest).

This screen capture might give some clues...



Cheers - Tony

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Beautiful job, Tony!

YouTube/optodata

DS365 | Win11 Pro | Ryzen 9 3950X | RTX 4070 Ti | 32GB RAM | 10TB SSDs | 5K+4K HDR monitors

Canon Vixia GX10 (4K 60p) | HF G30 (HD 60p) | Yi Action+ 4K | 360Fly 4K 360°

I have seen some video tutorials in power director with a aspect ratio "freeform", however my powerdirector 12 does not have it, only 16:9, and 4:3, so I need to know how to change that for video splitting, to have 2 videos on one screen, I need freeform to adjust one video to 50% width,

Thank you, Annie

yes, but how does this work for split screen videos?

where is the "freeform" ratio aspect they used to have on there for this type of editing?

Quote yes, but how does this work for split screen videos?

where is the "freeform" ratio aspect they used to have on there for this type of editing?

Take a look at the above video that ynotfish made back in 2014. The fixed aspect ratios you mentioned in your previous post are for producing videos, but the way to get side-by-side videos is to use masks so you can have the desired sections of two masked videos in the finished clip.