Zoom & Aspect Ratio - Fill the screen without distortion

sohhh

I upgraded to the latest VideoPad and I'm struggling with zoom & aspect ratio.

Previously I would use zoom to fill the screen on 4:3 or narrower for social media. Now I do the same with the zoom tool and it distorts the picture. I used to check the Preserve Aspect Ratio button. I don't see anything similar now.
Cropping just makes the highlighted area small, but doesn't fill the screen.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

borate

Tried the SCALE effect? Note the Select Preset option and the Maintain Aspect Ratio toggle.

[deleted]

A 4:3 image will never fill the 16:9 frame without either having black bars to either side ; losing some of the frame at the top or bottom of the image or being stretched horizontally.

To use Zoom effect to fill the frame with a 4:3 image do the following..... (Note: This will automatically crop the top/bottom of the frame to give a 16:9 image). There will be no distortion

Place the 4:3 clip on the timeline. In clip preview there will be chequered areas to either side of the image which will be black bands in the exported clip unless the frame is enlarged..
Left click the box labelled FX at the left end of the timeline. This opens the Effects window
Click the large green Plus sign and select Zoom from the listed effects. The preview pane will show a dotted rectangle around the frame with grab points on the sides and corners.
Click the down arrow for the Restraint option (Should currently be "None") and select 16:9
In the keyframe graph window on the right of the effects pane slide the red cursor line to the left (i.e. The Start of the clip)
Adjust the rectangle using the grab points to outline your zoomed 16:9 area. (The AR will remain 16:9) Usually one would set the left and right sides of the dotted rectangle so as to to just eliminate the chequered areas but depending on the image content you can also move the rectangle up/down. That's up to you.
Once you have outlined the area required add a keyframe by clicking the small green cross with the red line which is on the toolbar above the graph area.
In the keyframe graph window slide the red cursor line to the right (i.e. The End of the clip) and create a second keyframe.

When you now play the clip the image will play and fill the frame.

Nat

sohhh

@Nationalsolo I usually shoot 16:9 on my cell phone but output 4:3 for Instagram. I used the zoom tool to highlight the section of the wider video I wanted in the narrower Instgram frame.

I typically saw the black bars while editing, then output at 4.3 and accepted the crop prompt. It worked pretty well!

So I want 4.3 output from the 16.9 where I move the frame around without any aspect ration problems.

sohhh

@Borate I'll try it. I want to show subsections of the video in the 4:3 format without aspect ration issues as I use it for Instagram. So I move a 4:3 frame around within the larger 16.9. Black bars show...but not when outputting the cropped version.