Restore widescreen format to video

[parky123]

Bit of an odd one this...

I have a clip taken from a television interview a few years ago, which was clearly in widescreen, but has been copied to VHS in 4:3, and thence onto a DVD, still in the wrong aspect ratio, and everything is too skinny.

Is there any trick I can use in Elements to stretch the picture back to widescreen?

[Steve Grisetti]

I don't know how you digitized the video from VHS, so it's hard to say if that's where things went wrong or if it happened later. Did you use a digitizer device to go directly from a VHS tape to a DVD? Was Premiere Elements even involved in this process?

You also don't say if the stretched aspect ratio was visible in your Premiere Elements project or if it didn't show up until you output it to DVD.  But those are both significant factors -- as well as the version of Premiere Elements you're working with, your project settings and if you see a yellow orange "render" line above the first clip you added to your timeline (which would indicate that your project settings do not match your video specs).

[parky123]

This is an error that has happened before ever getting to Premiere Elements, I am just hoping that there may be a settings trick in Premiere that can correct it.

My husband tells me that the recording was never on VHS but was recorded from the TV directly to our DVD hard drive recorder. It displays correctly in widescreen if played on TV from the recorder, but comes out 4:3 when we make a disc from the recorder, and we can't see any settings to change on the machine.

I know it's an outside chance, but can Premiere change the aspect ratio of a clip? There is no render line when imported to Premiere 15.

[Steve Grisetti]

Yes, Premiere Elements can change the aspect ratio of your video. However, the more we know about the video you're editing from, the more likely you'll have success.

You also don't say if the stretched aspect ratio was visible in your Premiere Elements project or if it didn't show up until you output it to DVD.  But those are both significant factors -- as well as the version of Premiere Elements you're working with, your project settings and if you see a yellow orange "render" line above the first clip you added to your timeline (which would indicate that your project settings do not match your video specs).

[parky123]

I did say!

The video I am importing into Premiere is already wrong. See post above.

I also said that I am using Premiere 15 and there is no render line when I import.

I do not have a problem with output from Premiere, I am trying to use Premiere to correct an error that already exists before I import it into Premiere.

The clip is in 4:3 ratio but should be in widescreen, therefore the picture is squashed (not stretched). Can I use Premiere to stretch it?

The settings of the VOB file when it is imported are:

MPEG, image size 720x576, frame rate 25fps, pixel aspect ratio 1.0940

[Steve Grisetti · Accepted solution]

Right-click on the clip in the Project Assets panel and select Interpret Footage.

On the Interpret Footage panel, under Pixel Aspect Ratio, select Conform To and select a pixel aspect ratio from the list.

[parky123]

Thank you! Selected PAL widescreen and that immediately did the trick.

[Steve Grisetti]

There's usually a tool to fix it, once we know what we're working with. Glad you're up and running! Hope you'll check out my free Basic Training tutorials on YouTube.