Can't save right

[pravn]

I'm importing video from a camcorder that records at 720x480, editing it in VideoPad, then trying to export it again at 720x480 with a text overlay added at the bottom right. Everything looks perfect in preview: picture is full-frame, with the text overlaying the corner of the picture.

 

When I save it, though, the resulting video has the picture shrunk within the frame, and a black border, with the text overlaying part of the border, as though the video was shrunk before the overlay was added. Here's one of the messed-up videos that I uploaded anyway: http://www.veoh.com/watch/v21209371W5T7NQAc

 

Even if I select "Detect" when saving, it correctly comes up with 720x480.

 

Even weirder, if I take a snapshot, I get a 720x480 frame but with black bars at the top and bottom. The picture itself covers about 720x400. And again, the text overlay winds up in the border, as though the picture was changed before the text was added.

 

Does anyone know how to fix this? This is driving me nuts! I used the free version to do some video blogging last year, and it worked beautifully. I'm really regretting getting the paid version now.

 

Technical details in case they matter: version 2.41, running on Windows 7 Starter. I also ran the free version on Windows 7 Starter. I've tried saving as AVI, WMV, MPG, and MP4-- same results in all cases.

[Nationalsolo]

Hi

 

I think this problem is linked to the format of your video and its aspect ratio width/height.

720 x 480 video has an aspect ration of 1.5 whilst the VP overlay screen would seem to cater more for the usual formats of 1920 x 1080 and 1280 x 720 whose aspect ratio is 1.77

 

This means that when your video appears in the VP preview pane it is resized to fit top/bottom but owing to its shorter width it shows a black border on the left and right. This black border is, however, still part of the image that is displayed and this includes the overlay also.

 

Placing your text in the bottom right corner will correctly display it over the video image but if it is too long it will spill over into the black border area which is still part of the image. If this does happen you can get around it by either repositioning your text in the overlay (say, bottom centre) or reducing the font size or text length.

 

If you save your project as a 720 x 480 customised output, it does seem that the video is resized to something slightly different. It would seem to me (following a few tests on my PC with some 720 x 480 clips) that although you see the IMAGE AREA as 720 x 480 in the preview, it is actually displayed in a different format (i.e. aspect ratio) which includes the borders. During rendering it is this larger area that is reduced to your custom screen size as the WHOLE FRAME is reduced. As a consequence your displayed image gets smaller. The overlay, being already in the larger format is also reduced but ends up in a proportinally different position from what you saw in the preview.(This is just a guess on my part so I may be completely wrong!)

 

From some tests I have done you should (might) get a better result by setting your output to:-

 

Custom 320 x 240 (YouTube)

Custom 768 x 576 (TV_PAL)

Custom 640 x 480 (NTSC) (Depending on your country)

 

These are the closest to 720 x 480 and all have an aspect ratio of 1.33

If you pick a different physical size for your output try to keep the ratio width/height to 1.33.

 

I did these with a 720 x 480 video clip with overlay text added to the bottom right hand corner.

This was saved to my PC several times as an avi with the above custom settings. In each case the result was OK, the text remaining over the image. In other settings (which had a different aspect ratio) and with the same VP preview, the text spilled into the border as mentioned above.

 

Hope this helps

 

Nat