How to do a simple rotate and crop ?

Question

How to do a simple rotate and crop ?

Hi

I mistakenly took videos in portrait mode on holiday. My mistake being that I thought it would be easy to fix that, but..

Now I bought QTPro and I get a rotation, but as I have 16:9 (or rather 9:16) original, I really need to crop to get the important parts bigger. But HOW oh how..... can such a simple thing be so elusive ?

Any help (also with other free tools) appreciated. I aim to use the result in iMovie6. And there's another laugh, when I just import the rotated movie, it stretches it like in one of those funny mirrors.

Thanks

Torsten

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Mar 16, 2011 3:45 AM

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Answer 1

Jon Walker

Level 6

19,467 points

Mar 16, 2011 5:12 AM in response to dancinglightning

Now I bought QTPro and I get a rotation, but as I have 16:9 (or rather 9:16) original, I really need to crop to get the important parts bigger.

If you wish to pre-crop photos for external use, the normal approach is to use your photo management application (e.g., iPhoto or Aperture) to do this since it retains the original photo while allowing you crop the viewing area for display or use in external applications.

But HOW oh how..... can such a simple thing be so elusive ?

QT 7 Pro does not have a "Crop" option per sé. It does have a masking option which accomplishes the same results but is a bit more involved than a straight forward crop option.

I aim to use the result in iMovie6.

Then the normal approach here would be to crop or apply a Ken Burns effect in iMovie.

And there's another laugh, when I just import the rotated movie, it stretches it like in one of those funny mirrors.

This is normal. The movie dimensions are fixed according to project type and photos are automatically scaled to fill the project window. If you wish the photos to retain a smaller size and/or shape within the project window, the use a graphic application like Photoshop to position your cropped photo where you want it displayed on a transparent or colored background having the size and aspect ratio of your iMovie project. In this way, the background "fits" the project window and keeps the smaller photo from being re-scaled.

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Answer 2

Mar 16, 2011 11:46 AM in response to Jon Walker

Hello Jon,

thank you for answering. But the question was about videos, not pictures, as some of the answer assumes. I know about pictures, and assumed i could manage videos just as easily. So if you could repeat for videos what you said for pictures I'd be grateful.

Then about cropping in iMove6, where is that done, because I didn't see it. But before even getting there, I would need to get the movie there unsquashed, so I don*t know how to get the 720*1280 saved in a wide format without loosing heads (of the people in the video).

Torsten

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Answer 3

Jon Walker

Level 6

19,467 points

Mar 16, 2011 12:30 PM in response to dancinglightning

But the question was about videos, not pictures, as some of the answer assumes.

Sorry, must have been sidetracked by reference to "portrait" mode. For videos, I would either use MPEG StreamClip to both crop and scale content in a single export action. If you do not wish to re-compress the video, then your would create a "mask" the size and shape of the area you wish to retain and import/place it where needed using QT 7 Pro. While the display window will remain square or rectangular, the masked area can be of any shape if you are creating some sort of special Picture-within-a-picture effect. In any case, after the basic mask has been applied, the resulting video content can be re-scaled to fit your iMovie '06 project aspect ratio. Be advised that scaling has no effect on scaling in iMovie '08/'09'11 since they use the presence or lack of the anamorphic flag to determine how the content is scaled to the project aspect ratio.

As the MPEG Streamclip approach is pretty start forward, I won't go into how to use it. On the other hand, the masking approach may be new to you so here is a old "Quickie" Tutorial on the subject:

T026: USING MASK TO CROP

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Answer 4

Mar 18, 2011 10:33 AM in response to Jon Walker

Well thanks even more. So I managed the crop with mask thing (something one may expect on a windows program).
Even found a better video http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/2858/usingquicktime_to_crop_letterbox_or_pillarbox_from_videoclips/

But I don't manage it in one go. I'm no so much worried about the amount of steps (even I have 50 clips), just the quality. I could do raw even, if I knew how. So in QT rotating works and cropping, but when I try both, the crops I get are weird.

And the StreamClip is good, thanks. I had dowloaded it before but missed the "cropping and rotating in export dialog" thing. But also there I can't get it done in one step.
So I have 480x640 , those go pretty well with the cropping of a qt export to dv. But for the 1280x720 I really need to crop 150 off the left and 100 of the right before rotating and letterboxing the result.
If you can (maybe offline) say how this is done in StreamClip (even in 2 lossless steps) that'd be great.

Torsten

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Answer 5

Klaus1

Level 9

52,749 points

Mar 18, 2011 10:37 AM in response to dancinglightning

Alternatively:

You can do this using Quicktime Pro 7:

Open MOV file in QT Pro (QT 7.6.6)
Window -> Show Movie Properties
select "Video Track"
select "Visual Settings" from lower window
check "Preserve Aspect Ratio"
Click on appropriate rotation icon (MOV rotates!)
Click back on the open MOV in Player Window
FILE -> Save

You can also do this using TransformMovie, available here:

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/21859

Further useful information here:

http://www.sjoki.uta.fi/~shmhav/SVCDon_a_Macintosh.html#vert-horizrotate

http://www.sjoki.uta.fi/~shmhav/SVCDon_aMacintosh.html#43-169

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Answer 6

Mar 18, 2011 11:17 AM in response to Klaus1

Hello Klaus,
thank you for that, especially the extra links.

The qt things I knew, and don't fix my problem, neither does the transform app. The JES Deinterlacer looks nice.

I manged what I need with the QT now, I may have done the wrong order or I donÄt remember what before, but this is how it goes:

- open the movie
- create and apply a mask as needed (as described in the sceencast link earlier)
- then (and NOT before) press rotate.
- save (no export or save as needed)
-import to iMove4 (which does a to dv conversion)
(alternatively do the dv export here and if needed specify the crop/letterbox option

Thanks everyone for the help
Torsten

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Answer 7

Mar 18, 2011 11:18 AM in response to dancinglightning

Finally (with all the help) got a working workflow with QT

Apply mask FIRST

Then rotate

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Answer 8

Jon Walker

Level 6

19,467 points

Mar 18, 2011 3:15 PM in response to dancinglightning

I manged what I need with the QT now, I may have done the wrong order or I don't remember what before, but this is how it goes: 1) open the movie, 2) create and apply a mask as needed (as described in the sceencast link earlier), 3) then (and NOT before) press rotate, 4) save (no export or save as needed), 5) import to iMove4 (which does a to dv conversion) or 6) (alternatively do the dv export here and if needed specify the crop/letterbox option

I take it you did not download the free MPEG Streamclip app mentioned above. As previously stated, it crops, rotates, and converts in a single action. The QT masking alternative was simply a method of avoiding re-compression of the data when not desired/needed.

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Answer 9

Mar 19, 2011 2:39 AM in response to Jon Walker

Hi Jon,

no I did download it, and it's a nice tool. Like I said a little strange to put all the crop/rotate stuff in the export dialog, but otherwise much better than the name suggest (ie does much more than mpeg).

But I spent an hour and many many tries to get my conversion done, especially to dv (so iMovie doesn't do another one), and just didn't get it to work. I don't know why and I'm sure it can be done and is just due to my using it wrong. If you have any tips, great. I have 720x1280 Motion Jpeg input and need to crop that say 100 each side and rotate. Usually on dv output i got no picture. Often I had no soun. As I said I don't know.

I'm happy I found a solution, one is enough for me as I'm no expert and am spending 6 days on something I thought would be as easy as it is on photos. And I still can't get over it that such a basic thing is so difficult.

Still, thanks for your help.
Torsten

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Answer 10

Jon Walker

Level 6

19,467 points

Mar 19, 2011 7:59 AM in response to dancinglightning

no I did download it, and it's a nice tool. Like I said a little strange to put all the crop/rotate stuff in the export dialog, but otherwise much better than the name suggest (ie does much more than mpeg).

Conversion is a must with MPEG Streamclip since the individual or combined crop, rotate, and/or scale actions cannot be applied to the "Save As..." option. I hope you read the users guide regarding cropping because MPEG Streamclip has two cropping options. In the first, it crops the content and then exports what is left to the target dimensions less the cropped area. In the second, it crops the exported content and scales it to fit the target dimensions. This can sometimes be confusing for new users and/or create distortion.

But I spent an hour and many many tries to get my conversion done, especially to dv (so iMovie doesn't do another one), and just didn't get it to work.

DV tends to be a poor export choice where source cropping is concerned since it will always export the content to a 720x480 (NTSC) or 720x576 (PAL) encoding matrix no matter what you do and use a flag to set display for 4:3 or 16:9 display. A better option here would be the AIC (Apple Intermediate Codec) which allows the user to encode with a one-to-one relationship between the encoding matrix and the display matrix this avoiding the problems of DV and MPEG-2 encode "standards."

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Answer 11

Apr 24, 2013 2:08 AM in response to dancinglightning

Hello,

Thanks to Thorsten dancinlightning procedure Mar 18, 2011 7:17 PM (in response to Klaus1), now I can remove the black parts outside the real video area of an mpg video, earlier converted from video film to file. This is done in QT Player 7 Pro. I created the mask in Preview. I am mounting the video clips in a Keynote presentation.

And thanks to veryone else for bits and pieces.

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