Pillar Boxing 4:3 Material, What Width Res?

[Kevo]

I want to 'pillar box' some 4:3 mpg full res clips (720x576 & 704x576) with TMPG Express 4.0.

What do I need to crop the width down to on 720 and 704 resolution clips respectivley?

I can't get my head round the math!

[Warpaint]

Do you mean you want to make the clips 4:3?
If so then 720 X 540 is 4:3 and 704 X 528 is 4:3

Hope that helps

[redsox_mark]

I assume you are creating a widescreen video, and you want to have some 4:3 footage included - and have it pillar boxed (rather than stretched or cropped).

Not sure about TMPG Express 4.0, but it may be able to sort it out for you. In my editor (Vegas) I've done this; I have a widescreen project and simply put the 4:3 footage on the timeline and it pillar boxes it by default - no need to do any maths!

[Kevo]

Spot on redsox_mark, that's exactly what I want to do, although I want to use TMPG Express for the clips clips that need to be pillar boxed.

I don't gave Vegas.

TMPG Express 4.0 has a 'crop' filter where you can resize the clip manually.
I just want to know what new width I have to put in for 720 & 704 clips.

Warpaint

No they are already in 4:3.
I should have been more clear. I meant 4:3 as a 'video aspect ratio' and not a 'digital aspect ratio'.

Thanks

[redsox_mark]

Kevo,

I just had a quick play with TMPG Express 4.0, and I think it can do what you want without any maths.

The thing is you don't want to crop your video. It's just that the 4:3 video has a different pixel aspect ratio (PAR). So as long as the software knows the PAR of the various clips it will automatically do the boxing. You want to keep the resolution the same, but make sure the software knows the pixels are a different shape, and have it sort it out.

I added both a widescreen clip and a 4:3 clip with TMPG Express 4.0 into a single project. It correctly recognised the aspect ratios (and if it doesn't you can manually set it). Then I encoded this out as widescreen. The 4:3 clips were pillar boxed correctly.

[Kevo]

Thanks redsox_mark

Yes, just tried it and it works a treat.

So really all I needed to do was to set the output aspect ratio to 16:9 instead of 4:3.

Cheers

[redsox_mark]

Originally Posted by Kevo

So really all I needed to do was to set the output aspect ratio to 16:9 instead of 4:3.
Cheers

Yes, you've got it!