Rotating and Cropping a Video Scene - PapaJohn's Newsletter Archive

Having always used movie cameras and camcorders in the upright position, I hadn't realized how many turn them sideways to get a portrait-mode video clip, or create/receive clips that need rotation. Movie Maker can rotate clips by 90 or 180 degrees, but it results in mishaped and/or black borders... and sometimes you need something other than a 90 degree turn.

For this newsletter, I'll use Movie Maker and VirtualDub together... rotating scenes as needed, and cropping and resizing to appropriately resize the content to fill the screen. It's something that's easier to do than to explain.

As I videoed my grandson's football game on Saturday, I forced myself to take a couple scenes at angles that would need correcting during editing... to get a couple real clips to use for this tutorial.

Here's a frame from each of 4 scenes as they look in VirtualDub. Two are normal. One needs a 90 degree clockwise rotation, and the other needs turning about 45 degrees clockwise.

I'll open the same file in both Movie Maker and VirtualDub, and move back and forth between the two apps as I work on the selected segment. They don't conflict.

I took the footage in widescreen mode. I'll use the widescreen option in Movie Maker, and the images will appear a bit squeezed in VirtualDub... ignore the squeezing and all will be fine. VirtualDub doesn't reshape pixels to maintain the aspect ratio as Movie Maker does.

My Toshiba laptop was officially declared a 'lemon' by CompUSA last week. Three days after being returned from the last repair trip, it needed a new mother-board (again). As it was under a 3-year extended warranty, I was able to select anything up to the original purchase price to replace it; an HP laptop is on order.

I'll be at the Microsoft MVP Summit next week, and doing some vacationing on the way back... traveling with my old Dell laptop while I wait for delivery of the new HP. Being cramped for time and computer capabilities, I'll publish this and the next issue #72 very early, and then skip a week before #73.

Older versions of VirtualDub don't handle the newer type I DV-AVI files from Movie Maker 2 but VirtualDub 1.6.0 (build 215490) does. With the Panasonic DV codec installed on the computer, it's easy and lossless to go back and forth between Movie Maker and VirtualDub during project editing.

When Movie Maker has a file open, it doesn't lock it from being used by other software... and VirtualDub acts the same way. One result is being able to use Movie Maker and VirtualDub with the same file at the same time.

I'll emphasize this point as we go, starting by showing you the screen shot at the right... with the same source file open in both software apps.

When you see a segment that needs rotating, select the segment in VirtualDub by marking its first frame (press the Home key) and last frame (press the End key)... that tells Virtual Dub to use that segment when rendering a new file with your changes applied.

You can apply rotation and cropping filters at the same time, but I prefer doing them in two steps... rotating the segment first, and then cropping while looking at... the clip rightside up.

For this rotation, after selecting the range in VirtualDub, apply the rotate2 filer with a setting of -47 degrees, select the Panasonic codec for video compression, and then render the segment to a new file (File > Save as AVI). There's no need to resize; it's DV-AVI in and DV-AVI out... and DV-AVI (NTSC) is always 720x480 pixels.

Leaving VirtualDub open, import the new clip into Movie Maker and see how it looks... I named it a temporary file because I knew it would need cropping also... unless you like this kind of black-border effect, in which case you're done.

Preview the rotated clip in the MM2 collection and note that its made from just the selected segment of the larger clip.

... Leaving MM2 open, go back to VirtualDub, this time to crop the rotated clip to show the center of interest... and resize that part to the full 720x480 pixels.

Add the resize filter (Video > Filters > resize). Opt for 720x480 for DV-AVI (NTSC) size...

The Cropping option isn't a filter in VirtualDub... it's an option that you can use when adding any of the filters.

It's grayed out until you add a filter. In this case, adding the resize filter ungrays the button.

Pressing the Cropping button opens this window... where you tweak the 4 controls to get the desired offset dimensions.

Many scenes such as this one don't need precise arithmetic. I eyeball/estimate it as I set the cropping lines. When it looks OK, press the button and move on.

With the cropping settings selected, the resizing ready to make it 720x480, the Panasonic DV codec selected for video compression, save it as an AVI file (File > Save as AVI), and you have what should be the final corrected clip.

... from VirtualDub, go back to Movie Maker 2, import the new clip and take a look at it in the preview monitor.

If it's good enough, put it into your project and keep going. If you want to tweak it further, it's still an open project in Virtual Dub... go back and adjust the settings some more, and save it again to a new avi file.

Check the clip's audio track. The wave patterns show the audio track made it through the two rendering processes without us having to think about it.

I'm hoping you'll find the process of using Movie Maker and VirtualDub together like this to be easy and fun...

I didn't go through the other scene that needed rotating... it would be even easier than the one we did. Use the rotate filter instead of the rotate2... Rotate is for 90 degree increments... rotate2 is for any angle.

If you don't take videos at angles and don't need to rotate clips, you can get lots of mileage from the cropping feature... I'm sure there are many scenes where you would like to change the focus of attention by cropping/resizing.

I look forward to comments and discussion about this and other newsletters on the forums at:

I'm involved in many things that support users of Movie Maker and Photo Story, and adding more regularly. Some are free and others reasonably priced.

TheDVShow is the only weekly Podcast having more useful information about desktop video editing and production than anywhere else on the Web. Digital video editing, nonlinear editing, streaming media, software releases, tutorials, business tips, technical help, download of the day and news on the latest products to make everything easier. It's where professional and consumer desktop video users go to stay on the cutting edge.

Call the phone mail machine to get your technical question answered on the air... call (206)-203-3516

The radio broadcast is from Boston, and the website has downloadable podcast files. The June 19th 2005 podcast included the first 'bi-weekly' show with a segment about Movie Maker 2.

Movie Maker 2 - Do Amazing Things (with its online companion on www.papajohn.org), published by Microsoft Press

Movie Maker 2 - Zero to Hero - with support on the publisher's forum - Friends of Ed

MaximumPC's winter 2005 quarterly special... had a 7 page tutorial 'Make a Killer Home Movie with Maker 2'. The special edition of the video made for it is now on my website as a file download.

Learning VirtualDub - published by Virtual Dub

Packt Publishing, is the first book about VirtualDub software. I wrote the first chapter about downloading and setting up the software: VirtualDub, VDubMod and AVISynth.

Movie Maker 2 and Photo Story 3 - www.papajohn.org - the site's 3 goals are: an online companion to the Do Amazing Things book, a detailed tutorial for PhotoStory 3, and helping you solve Movie Maker 2 problems.

Forums are open to all for viewing, but require registration of those who want to post. Moderators actively participate to ensure the forum discussions move forward and stay on track.

Newsgroups are wide open for all to view and post... moderation is collective by the participants.

Movie Maker 2/Photo Story newsletter. The annual subscription is $20 and the link to subscribe is on the main page of my Movie Maker website at:

Older newsletters (more than 6 issues ago) are posted by Rob Morris to an Archive Site at his Windows Movie Makers website. Links from website pages to specific newsletters make it easier for the website viewer to see the content of both while browsing a topic.

Drop an email to suggest a newsletter topic... I can use more requests rather than fewer.

Transition Maker 2 (TM2) is a utility for the ultimate in making your own personal and custom transitions for Movie Maker 2. It's a joint product from Patrick Leabo, the programmer, and myself. Version 2 was released a week ago and I'm still working on updating the online tutorial.

I routinely beta test the Pixelan packages and think very highly of their people and products.

Managing your personal information is more of a challenge as hard drives get bigger and the internet more robust.

My personal database has been an ongoing project over many years, and is now available to others. Info is on the Managing > Personal Database page of my site, and in the database package itself.

To others it's $10. To order, use the button on the top of the Managing > Personal Database page.

An online gallery that fully aligns with the main priority of the website is the 'PapaJohn Expert Zone' at neptune.

Check it at Neptune and the Distributing > Neptune page of the website, where there's a developing tutorial about how to use the service.

in conjunction with the Portage, Michigan library, I offer two free training sessions about Movie Maker, an intro session and a workshop. The upcoming scheduled sessions are:

If you can't save a movie because your project has become too complex, e-mail a copy and I'll divide it into manageable sub-projects, and provide detailed instructions about how to render the parts and assemble them into your final movie. $49.95 (no cost if it's not the right solution or doesn't work) - for details, see the sidebar on the Problem Solving > Can't Save a Movie page of www.papajohn.org

Movie Maker 2/Photo Story training and support services start at $50 per hour - send an email - PapaJohn@CharterMi.net and I'll help you determine your needs, and work with you to plan and implement them.

Wedding combo website/video packages - starting at $2,500 + travel expenses. See Jill-MarkWedding or the bottom branch of the Movie Maker 2 website for a sample of what you can expect for the online portion of the package.

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About John 'PapaJohn' Buechler from Microsoft.com

John "PapaJohn" Buechler, of Kalamazoo, Mich., goes by PapaJohn online. An avid user of Movie Maker since its first release, and a regular supporter of the community of Movie Maker users, John received a 2003 MVP award from Microsoft for that support. In March 2003, he started a comprehensive website about Movie Maker 2 at www.PapaJohn.org. He maintains the website, writes books and articles, teaches, and provides support services - all for the community of Movie Maker 2 users. An engineer by formal education, John is a computer database and multimedia expert by business and personal experience. He co-authored the first book about Movie Maker 2 and is actively working on a second one. You can find his advice in the Windows XP Movie Maker newsgroup and in the Windows Movie Makers Forums.

This newsletter is republished with permission of John "PapaJohn" Buechler.
Please note that this is an archive of newsletters and some information may become outdated. PapaJohn, and the webmaster of this site, provides this information "AS IS" with no warranties.

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