Stop letterboxing

froggy47

I shoot mp4 video with a smart phone & procsss with video pad. From time to time , video pad puts letterboxing on a clip. No idea why and I can't seem to find a way to shut it off/tell it don't do that.Shows up like black bars and/or checker boardings on left and right of video clip. Looks like shi# when I upload to YT.

Any one help? Thanks.

froggy47

BTW I am using the paid / pro version, not the free.

borate

Are all the clips shot identically - resolution, orientation, etc.?

As suggested earlier, if you can pin it down to a specific file on which this repeatedly occurs, upload that file to a server, such as Google Drive or MS OneDrive, make the link public and post it here. Someone will try to dupe your results.

froggy47

Yes, I let the smart phone just default to basic settings. It seems to happen when I am holding the camera over the subject (think like taking a video of your feet). But I ALWAYS HOLD the camera in the landscape orientation. I did not see any earlier suggestion, sorry, new to how this forum works. I was having trouble getting login id/pw maybe missed it.

Thanks

Here is a link to one of the videos that it happened on, two clips total, stitched together with video pad, one gets letterboxed & the next not. My "angle" IIRC was the same pretty much.

borate

Upload the two raw clips, just as would have imported them to VP, and we'll take a look.

froggy47

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1gzZzaR7aAIRh3GWBvnNqweAAfKcv-GiG

This is a link to drive.google.com, a folder with 2 short video clips (raw mp4) direct off camera. When I process using VideoPad one gets pillarboxed and one not. Thanks if you can help me figure out how to prevent this.

One guess is that the INITIAL orientation/angle/tilt of the camera establishes some parameter that gets embedded in the properties of the mp4 clip. That gets "picked up" by VP and results in the pillarbox. Of course with these type videos I need to move the camera around as the clip runs. Maybe I need to hold the camera to start the clip like I was taking a shot off in the "distance" then move in and point it down? I may have slightly done that in one clip vs. the other.

Thanks so much.

Bob 🙂

borate

Looking at the clips you uploaded, one is already cropped, though the aspect ratio looks okay. So it appears that VP is just passing along what it sees. The other is full screen. Click your link, to verify. Perhaps these were not the unprocessed, direct-from-cam files??

froggy47

I just copied them from the camera folder to the desktop computer folder using windows copy/paste. Maybe the camera app (nexus 6p stock android camera app) does it (pillarboxing), but I asked the tech support at google fi (where the phone & phone monthly service comes from) and they were enthusiastic but kind of clueless, which I pretty much expected from level 1 tech support.

I am ready to assume now that it's the app on the phone does it. It's a bare bones camera/video android app. Maybe I can find a support group for it. There are other "better" camera apps also. Thanks so much. I will post back if I get anywhere.

🙂(