So you want black bars of random thickness on sides, top and bottom of your videos? Because that's what "not resizing" will do.

Not exactly.

I'm putting several clips next to each other. Black bars won't allow me to see more than one video at a time...

EDIT: Or putting differently - I have a clip in 1280x720, which has a 480x280 "window", I want the software to remove everything around that window and treat it like 480x280 object. Now it's stretching the original video to 1920x1080, then it scales it up again after cropping, so the image is already malformed seriously. When I reduce it size, to fit other videos, it's hardly recognizable...

Quote: Hello All!

I'm working on a video that will combine multiple clips from a playthough of a video game. This involves mostly cropping/resizing.

My issue is, that the video will be in 1080, while the gameplay is recorded in 720. When I preview the clip, it looks nice. Then I insert it - it becomes a bit blurry due to rescaling to 1080. After that I crop it and resize it - then it becomes extremely blurry...

I attached a comparison between how it looks on a produced video and snapshot of the clip preview more less the same size.

Is there a way to force the program not to resize the image when inserting or cropping? And using the base resolution of the clip after insert?

I'm using PowerDirector Ultra 13.0.2408.0.

If I understand right, you can use masks to leave only show the portion of the image you want and position on the screen.

The image resolution of each clip will take the proportion that it will take up on the screen, this idepende its original resolution.

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To add masks.
select the clip, Modify button. tab, Mascara, choose a mask if you need to uncheck the box Keep aspect ratio. AMD-FX 8350 / 8GB DDR3
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Hi Matthias_Wlkp -

I think I basically understand what you're saying, but you'll correct me if I've got it wrong.

1. You plan to produce the video to 1920x1080 - yes?
2. Your gameplay captures are 1280x720 - yes?
3. You're arranging multiple clips on the screen - yes?

Yes - even if you insert a squibby little graphic that's 160x90px, PD will display it at "full screen" which will make it look blurry & jagged.

You cannot force PD to insert clips not "to resize the image when inserting or cropping? And using the base resolution of the clip after insert?" No - you have to control that yourself.

PlaySound's suggestion of masking (rather than cropping) will give you a crisper looking result.

An easy way is to use an overlay like the one attached. It can be used to resize clips "accurately" & be discarded later.



If you post a screenshot of your workspace, it will be easier to determine what you're trying to do.

Cheers - Tony
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Quote: EDIT: Or putting differently - I have a clip in 1280x720, which has a 480x280 "window", I want the software to remove everything around that window and treat it like 480x280 object. Now it's stretching the original video to 1920x1080, then it scales it up again after cropping, so the image is already malformed seriously. When I reduce it size, to fit other videos, it's hardly recognizable...

Well, you crop to a a 480x280 window so you end up with exactly those pixels.
Now:
- If you try to fill all the space on the screen - that is 1920x1080 obviously it will be up-scaled with some bad results - you cannot magically create the exact pixels where there are none. Software can only approximate so much, is not like in the CSI movies.
- If you don't upscale (by masking as opposed to cropping), than the 480x280 image remains untouched, but surrounded by black edges to fill the 1920x1080 canvas.

I don't get what else is to be done...

Thank You everyone for help. This was very insightful - I thought masks would work differently (obviously I'm new to the software).

I reworked my video and now the resolution is fine. Excellent!

At the beginning I really disliked how the masks work - when I applied rotation, the mask would rotate too... (I used it before in cropping and it was fine).

I'm not sure if I use it right, but I get what I wanted by using video crop first to center the video on the element that is interesting for me (no zooming though), then I apply the same parameters for mask, that I used for rescaling and seems perfect. The only annoying thing in this method is that I can't preview the result in crop menu and I can't seem to find any manual parameter input for crop...