Does anyone know of a way to convert a 320x240 to 352x240, but leave the extra pixels blank?

It seems to me that when video encoding is done to convert resolution, it ends up blurring. Not only that, it should be a much faster encode, as there's not anywhere near as much math to do. I was wondering if there was a way to have each frame just get padded with black so that even though the image would be slightly smaller, it would be of a better quality.

My guess is that it would look sort of like a sideways letterbox, but the proportion should still look correct.

Any ideas?

-- Rob Leas (nrleas@csi.com), December 05, 2002

Answers

You can do that in Premiere by maintaining the original proportion of the clip.

Cheers,

-- No One (no@one.com), December 06, 2002.

Thanks for the response.

I don't suppose you've actually tried this? I don't see any way of specifying 'proportion' in Premiere.

-- Rob Leas (nrleas@csi.com), December 06, 2002.

Actually, I have for 704x480 stills to 720x480. And with what you lose on each edge of an analogue set (5-10% on each edge), you won't even notice any black bars.

Right-click on the clip in the time line and select video, maintain proportions. (Or it might be video, properties, maintain proportions or something similar-- I'm not on my editing machine at the moment)

Cheers,

-- No One (no@one.com), December 06, 2002.

...or I think that merely highlighting the clip in the time line window and pressing Ctrl-B will do it as well.

Cheers,

-- No One (no@one.com), December 06, 2002.

Right-click in Timeline, Video, Maintain Aspect Ratio. (I'm on my editing machine)

Cheers,

-- No One (no@one.com), December 07, 2002.

Thanks!

I tried to respond - yesterday I think it was - but the site wouldn't let me submit.

I figured a way to do it with TMPGEnc. The thing I didn't understand was that it was possible to tell the software to leave the aspect ratio alone and since the height remains unchanged, the width just needs to be filled out. In TMPGEnc, the setting is in the 'advanced' window: 'Video Arrange Method: Center (keep aspect ratio)'.

I have yet to see whether the results look as good as I hope...

-- Rob Leas (nrleas@csi.com), December 08, 2002.

USE TMPEGENC AND IN SETTING - ADVANCED CHOOSE CENTER AS VIDEO ARRANGE METHOD. IF FILE IS LESS THAN 352 BY 240 IT WILL BE CENTERED.

-- RT (RT@RT.RT), July 02, 2003.