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Beginner help please: How do I trim Canvas size to fit the video perfectly in AE?

Guest
Feb 25, 2017 Feb 25, 2017

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Hi!

I have Warp Stabilized a video, and have set Framing to Stabilize and Crop only, not auto-scale.

Therefore, the resulting video has a black frame around it.

So, (sorry for the Photoshop terminology) how do I trim out the transparent pixels and be left with the exact resolution of my video, whatever it may be? Manually setting the Region Of Interest is not that precise, and I neither want to cut off any video edges, nor be left with any black edges. Also, I use Adobe Media Encoder to do the final export, so if it can be done there in a precise manner, please let me know.

Googled a bit but couldn't find a perfect way to do this.

Your help will be highly appreciated! Thank you for reading!

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correct answers 1 Correct answer

Community Expert , Feb 25, 2017 Feb 25, 2017

Hey! I think I might've hit upon a solution, let me know what you think of it:

You are not paying attention. If you send your odd sized video to render, the renderer will resize the comp to standard video dimensions and do it poorly. If you open do manage to render to a format that supports non standard resolution and your system manages to play it back it will have black bars around the edges because video players (Media Player, Quick Time - just about anything else) also comply to standard fram

...

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LEGEND ,
Feb 25, 2017 Feb 25, 2017

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Not sure what you are asking. You already covered all options. There simply is no "Trim" option. Video doesn't work this way.

Mylenium

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Guest
Feb 25, 2017 Feb 25, 2017

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Really?? Come on don't say that, I'm sure there's a proper way of doing it. How do I get rid of the extra black edges without cropping the video further?

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LEGEND ,
Feb 25, 2017 Feb 25, 2017

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Feel free to scale it up using whatever means you deem suitable or just crop it. The rest makes no sense. You really need to clear your mind of your wrong preconceptions. No point in clinging on to workflows that won't work with video.

Mylenium

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Guest
Feb 25, 2017 Feb 25, 2017

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Guess I'm not getting my point across well... :S

You said "scale it up or crop it"... agreed, I'd like to crop it. But how do I do that in a precise manner? By using the Region Of Interest method is too imprecise. Surely there's a better way of doing it?

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Explorer ,
Feb 25, 2017 Feb 25, 2017

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You just go to comp settings and change your canvas size there.   I can also adjust time, format, etc.    Just click Composition on the tool bar to bring you there.  I don't know my Mylenium always has to give pointless wordy answers.

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Community Expert ,
Feb 25, 2017 Feb 25, 2017

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Video is not like stills. There are specific frame sizes applicable to various formats. If you want to distribute your video to the public and be able to watch it on YouTube or any other standard play back medium the video has to be a certain frame size. You need to learn the standards and abide by them or your video will be distorted or resampled when you upload.

You cannot simply trim your composition to remove the black edges and successfully render a video for public consumption. You have to either scale it up or down to fit a standard video frame size.  Those are your choices.

I suggest you spend some time studying video standards. 

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Guest
Feb 25, 2017 Feb 25, 2017

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Alright, understood. However, for my problem, please consider the following example:

I have a 1920 x 1080 video. I Warp Stabilized it (with Auto Scaling off) which resulted in a video with a resolution lesser than 1080p.

Now... if I export that as is, AE will provide me a 1080p video with black edges all over. How do you suggest I avoid that? I do not want to upscale it, as that will dampen the quality. How do I trim the comp size so that it matches my video size perfectly?

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Community Expert ,
Feb 25, 2017 Feb 25, 2017

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Let's get some terms straight. You say:

I have a 1920 x 1080 video. I Warp Stabilized it (with Auto Scaling off) which resulted in a video with a resolution lesser than 1080p.

Video resolution is not really what you are talking about. Your layer was scaled to less than the frame size of 1920 X 1080. The resolution of the video in the comp is still 1080 X 1920. Another point, Auto Scale cannot be turned off. You can set it to 100%, but it can't be turned off. If you mean that you set auto scale to 100% then Warp stabilizer will crop the footage and give you the black edges.

The resizing in warp stabilizer is quite good. If it were my project I would turn on the Preserve Scale option and then grab the Maximum scale slider and drag it until the layer fills the frame. If the Maximum Value for Auto Scale is less than about 115% you are going to be hard pressed to find any difference in the apparent resolution or clarity of the layer. If you are over 115% then you might try using detail preserving upscale to get the layer to fill the frame but you'll have to render some tests and look at them full screen and at full speed to see if there is a difference. If you want more clarity you can experiment with some sharpening effects, but here again, you cannot judge the quality of the image unless you render it to your delivery format and watch it at full resolution and full speed. Video quality cannot ever be judged by looking at a still frame. It is a waste of time.

Even if you take this layer or comp and put it in a 720 comp (what about 80% of the HD broadcasters and cable companies send you instead of 1920 content) you will have to scale it down and this will reduce the perceived resolution (clarity/sharpness) of the footage. Those are just the facts when you are dealing with video. There's nothing you can do about it.

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Guest
Feb 25, 2017 Feb 25, 2017

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Thank you for the detailed response. Indeed, my result is just 106% at 100% smoothing, so it's not that big a deal, but I still wanted absolutely no upscaling in the final result, which is why I hoped that the comp could be trimmed down to the cropped video as well. Guess this is something I'll learn over time... a complete newbie to AE as of now, and having this option so readily available in Photoshop might've made me expect the same of AE.    

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Community Expert ,
Feb 25, 2017 Feb 25, 2017

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Video is not stills so the same rules do not apply. When you're dealing with still images however you should always make sure that the final image is an even number of pixels high and wide if you were going to place the pixel on a document for printing or on the web because odd numbers can easily miss align the image with the pixel grid and reduce the apparent resolution.

Don't worry, you'll get it.

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Guest
Feb 25, 2017 Feb 25, 2017

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Hey! I think I might've hit upon a solution, let me know what you think of it:

After Warp Stabilizing, Auto-Scale shows me that my video should be scaled up to 106.8% to fit the 1080p frame.

So, to find out the actual cropped video's height I did: 1080*100/106.8 = 1011.24 pixels.

Then I simply set the comp size to the above result, aspect ratio locked, and find that I've discovered the mathematical way of Set Comp to Video Resolution!

This way I finally get my Warp Stabilized video exported in the cropped resolution with Zero upscaling! This way, even if I were playing the video on a 1080p display, if the video player has the ability to show the video in actual resolution, the viewer gets the choice of viewing the video in original resolution without any shortfall in quality due to upscaling, even if by a minor 6%!

Leaving the upscale decision to the viewer is a lot better than us upscaling the video by default and forcing them to watch a larger but inferior quality video.

Once again, would love to hear your views on this since I understand you've been in this industry more than twice the years that I've lived on earth!

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Community Expert ,
Feb 25, 2017 Feb 25, 2017

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Instead of going through all of that, just leave the comp with the black bars and export that way.  The viewer still has the option to zoom and you don't lose resolution .

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Guest
Feb 25, 2017 Feb 25, 2017

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Hahaha no! I'd hate it if I had a video with black bars which I can't zoom in on my TV. I'd be forced to watch the actual resolution, but with black bars version.

On the other hand, if I leave the upscale decision to the viewer, the TV will automatically upscale it. And if it is being viewed by say Media Player Classic, they get the liberty of watching either by 'Normal View' or 'Touch window from inside' view, later being the perfect zoom-in option.

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LEGEND ,
Feb 25, 2017 Feb 25, 2017

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VelvetAssassin  wrote

Hahaha no! I'd hate it if I had a video with black bars which I can't zoom in on my TV. I'd be forced to watch the actual resolution, but with black bars version.

On the other hand, if I leave the upscale decision to the viewer, the TV will automatically upscale it. And if it is being viewed by say Media Player Classic, they get the liberty of watching either by 'Normal View' or 'Touch window from inside' view, later being the perfect zoom-in option.

Nice thoughts, but video just doesn't work that way.  It deals in STANDARD RESOLUTIONS.  Sure, you can create video in any crazy dimensions you want, but you'll only be able to play it back the way you intend privately.  On a computer.  If you want to be able to distribute it to a wider audience, you had better get used to the notion of standard delivery specifications.

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Guest
Feb 26, 2017 Feb 26, 2017

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LATEST

You're absolutely right, I can playback the way I intend only on my computer, privately! Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

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Community Expert ,
Feb 25, 2017 Feb 25, 2017

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Hey! I think I might've hit upon a solution, let me know what you think of it:

You are not paying attention. If you send your odd sized video to render, the renderer will resize the comp to standard video dimensions and do it poorly. If you open do manage to render to a format that supports non standard resolution and your system manages to play it back it will have black bars around the edges because video players (Media Player, Quick Time - just about anything else) also comply to standard frame sizes. If you send a non standard video frame size to Vimeo or YouTube or just about any other streaming service they will re-compess it, usually poorly, and resize it to fit the standard frame sizes. Why is this such a hard concept. Everything you said in your post is nonsense. Warp Stabilizer does an excellent job at resizing the original video and re-interpreting the pixels. It moves them all. The original pixel information is absolutely gone. None of the original pixels exist any more. As long as your Max Scale factor is below about 115% you cannot tell the difference in the apparent resolution. It's impossible to do so. Even if you leave the video completely unscaled and just stabilize it, if you grab a frame and overlay it on the original frame using the difference blend mode you will not see a black image,see color fringes where the pixels don't match and you may even see some dramatic differences in the pixels.

Please, learn about video standards, use the default presets for comp size and rendering, and don't monkey with any of the compression settings until you achieve an experts knowledge of compression and formats. You will just be wasting your time.

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Guest
Feb 26, 2017 Feb 26, 2017

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Hehe, sorry didn't mean to rile you up. Your explanation makes perfect sense, thank you for that.

I'll keep your words in mind, thank you.

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Guest
Feb 25, 2017 Feb 25, 2017

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Problem is, I don't know what size to set the comp to! Guess what I'm looking for is the exact opposite of Right Click > Transform > Fit To Comp.

Is there some option some where, like Fit Comp to Video resolution? Or something like that?

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