AV News 189 - August 2012
To clip the video, click on the 'Crop Video' check box and you will see a
couple of new blue triangular markers appear on the video clip timeline.
These represent the start and end of the clip. To cut a bit from the start of
the clip, you can either left-click/hold and drag the marker, while watching
the clip, or you can play the clip, pause it when you get to your start point
and click on the little green 'down arrow' by 'Start Time'. Trimming the end
of the clip is achieved in a similar same way.
So why would you want to trim the video clip? As you will see in a minute,
we can also start and end the clip in PTE, but by trimming it here, the file size
is reduced accordingly and remember, this file is going to be included in your
PTE.exe file.
Your second option is to reduce the pixel size of the clip. You might want
to do this if your HD video is going to be incorporated into a 1024 x 768
sequence, or perhaps you plan to use the video as a smaller insert into a still
image. Click on the 'Resize:' checkbox and you will be able to use the pull
down box to select a new pixel size. Do note however, that you can't change
the aspect ratio. I know, this looks like a problem, because you want to
produce a 4:3 aspect ratio sequence, but your video is all 16:9. It isn't a
problem, honest, we can sort it in PTE later.
Having chosen to trim the clip, or to change it's pixel size, you now chose
'Convert Selected' and it will produce your new file. Incidentally it does
produce a new file, so if you're not happy with it, go back and have another
go and get a second new file.
A little warning - Almost every camera seems to have its own video file
format and the video converter library may not be totally up to date, especially
for the newest cameras. For example, a year ago, I found that if I trimmed a
Canon 7D file, the sound and video lost synch. However the work-around
was to first convert the complete file and then reconvert, with trims, the
converted file.
Including video in the timeline.
Having converted your video clip, or allowed PTE to do it for you, the clip can
now be treated just as if it was a still slide image. Use the usual ability to fade
in and out of the clip, drag and drop the video clip along the timeline; it will
behave just like a still.
So how do we solve this problem of different aspect ratios for stills and
video? My solution is to use the facilities available in Objects & Animation
(O&A). With your video clip selected on the timeline of PTE, go into O&A and
you will see that most parts of this are as you would normally expect. For
most facilities O&A treats the video as if it were any other object, just like text,
pictures, rectangles or frames.
If your chosen video is 16:9 format in a 4:3 show, then it will have been
inserted to fill the width, but leaving black bars top and bottom. If you don't
like this (and I wouldn't) there are a couple of options, you could put some
backg