Video cropping and black voids

Hey guys,

A quick tip needed for final cut pro. When cropping a video, it leaves a black section on the canvas at whichever point what cropped out. Is there anyway to resize what video is left to fit the viewing window rather than having the black void?

Cheers

Macbook Pro 2.2Ghz, Mac OS X (10.5.2)

Posted on May 7, 2008 9:43 AM

Reply
8 replies

May 7, 2008 10:15 AM in response to ballachebrian

If you crop the video to a size that differs from it's original aspect ratio then there is no way you're going to get it to fill the frame without distortion. As an example, if you're cropping something off the left side only, but nothing from the top or bottom, you've not changed the aspect ratio. You'll need to clip an equal amount off the top or bottom to regain your aspect ratio, then you can resize and repo to fill the frame. Hope that helps.

May 7, 2008 10:16 AM in response to ballachebrian

Sounds like crop is the wrong tool for what you're trying to do. I think you just want to resize (while maintaining aspect ratio) and reposition the image.

If you are trying to just crop one side of the frame then you're affecting the aspect ratio and you won't be able to fill the frame without either distorting the image or losing some of it.
ie if you're trying to crop out a mic that's creeping in to the top of frame then you need to move the image up so that the mic disappears. You then need to increase the height of the frame so that you don't leave a black bar at the bottom. In doing this you will make the width bigger as well thus losing you some of the sides of the frame. The only way to avoid this is to stretch the image vertically but as you have seen this looks wrong.

May 7, 2008 10:20 AM in response to ballachebrian

Yeah but you were on the right track for making due... "the best I have come up with is to reposition the image to make it kind of a letterbox of black area, but its not really what I am looking for"

Maybe crop it to what you want and drop the cropped shot over some kind of BG (Live Type has plenty, another video shot with a blur filter added etc.) You work with what you've got.

Good Luck

rh

May 30, 2008 9:54 AM in response to Randy Holder

I can't believe that FCP can't crop something without leaving a pixel border/outline around the cropped layer!!! What the Eff?

I've tried a couple work arounds and having to go to AE for a simple crop is ridiculous.

-Feathering exaggerates it.
-White layers over top with masked out areas are counter productive bc base image moves and top layer would have to be key framed.
-After effects takes too long to export/reimport.
-Doesn't show up on Progressive computer display but NTSC ONLY.

I've attached a link to an example that hopefully somebody can help with a work-around.

http://www.neverinneutral.com/josh/FCP-outline.jpg

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Video cropping and black voids

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