Help me, f'list kenobi! You're my only hope!

[deird_lj]

Okay. So I'm trying to do a vid. And it's giving me problems.


My problem is as follows:

- BtVS seasons 1 to 3 are in 4:3 aspect ratio.
- BtVS seasons 4 to 7 are in widescreen (16:9 aspect ratio).

Now, I've figured out that, in iMovie, I can have the widescreen bits automatically change to crop the sides off and be in 4:3 - or, on the other hand, I can have the 4:3 bits crop the top and bottom off so that they're in widescreen. All well and good. But not actually what I want to do here.


What I want is to have letterbox format on the bits that are in the wrong ratio.

Apparently I can do this in Streamclip? Right?
...but I have no idea how.


Help!

Comments

[roccondilrinon.livejournal.com]

Unless you're intending to do something meaningful with the letterboxing, I have to say NO NO NO NO NO! You know, the way you jump in when you know someone's about to do something completely the wrong way. One of the worst sins in fan-editing of any sort is messing up the aspect ratio, whether it be squishing or stretching the image, switching aspect ratios seemingly at random between shots, or (in some things I've seen) compositing an effect in one aspect ratio over a background in another — it looks wrong and horrible and incredibly amateurish, and it pulls the viewer kicking and screaming out of the actual video, no matter how good it is in other ways.

tl;dr: Don't do it. Crop it to one or the other. Switching aspect ratios mid-video looks HORRIBLE.

Caveat: If, on the other hand, you ARE planning something special to do with the different ratios, I'd be intrigued to know what it is. It could be awesome, but it would be VERY difficult to pull off without being thoroughly jarring and distracting from the actual point.

[deird1]

f, on the other hand, you ARE planning something special to do with the different ratios

Of course I am. You don't think I'd come up with something elaborate and tricky for no reason, do you?

[taiba.livejournal.com]

Well, you might :-p

It's entirely possible that you have gone completely stark, raving mad and lost all sense of good taste since the last time we saw you :-p