Video editing classic console captures... those black bars

[F34R]

I couldn't find another spot to put this in, so I hope this is proper.

 

Using the Analogue NT Mini, capturing the 1080p footage, results in the obvious black bars from the 4:3 aspect of the actual game footage.

 

 

Any advice on editing that to show the game footage as the background, cropped to fill and blurred; so the black bars will be gone? I only have iMovie, but willing to get Final Cut Pro if necessary. Any other editing software suggested is nice too.

 

Thanks.

[spacecadet]

I don't know if there's some automatic way to do it in iMovie, but the standard way in most non-linear editors would be to crop that to 4:3, then use a layer beneath that layer to duplicate the same track, zoom it in so it fills the 16:9 screen and add a blur effect. In higher-end editors you'd have to do it manually, but it only takes about a minute. iMovie may work the same way; I've just never used it.

[F34R]

H mm... I know the method with using something like video from a phone, and the black bars show up when uploading it, etc. However, with this footage, those black bars are coming directly from the feed. They are part of the capture. Will cropping that to 4:3 work in that respect?

[RampantOctopus]

Soooo, I'm a video editor for a living, and let me just suggest that the tool you want to use is Premiere Pro. Final Cut Pro X can do it, but the whole program is a PITA to use. iMovie, I don't know. Haven't ever actually looked at the program. Anyhow, in Premiere, you'll have to manually set up the first iteration of this effect, you'll be able to copy and paste look in the future. The basic set up on your timeline is this:

 

Video Track 2: Duplicated Clip --> black edges cropped out (extra credit, drop shadow)

Video Track 1: Original Clip --> blurred, reduced brightness

 

Future iterations can be effected quickly by creating and saving "favorites" to your effects palate or by copying and "pasting attributes" to subsequent clips.

 

Hope this helps.

[F34R]

Soooo, I'm a video editor for a living, and let me just suggest that the tool you want to use is Premiere Pro. Final Cut Pro X can do it, but the whole program is a PITA to use. iMovie, I don't know. Haven't ever actually looked at the program. Anyhow, in Premiere, you'll have to manually set up the first iteration of this effect, you'll be able to copy and paste look in the future. The basic set up on your timeline is this:

 

Video Track 2: Duplicated Clip --> black edges cropped out (extra credit, drop shadow)

Video Track 1: Original Clip --> blurred, reduced brightness

 

Future iterations can be effected quickly by creating and saving "favorites" to your effects palate or by copying and "pasting attributes" to subsequent clips.

 

Hope this helps.

Thank you. That's what I've been thinking about, but wasn't sure if that was going to work since the black edges were from the source and not just added to a 16:9 frame from a 4:3 source.

[Kismet]

I couldn't find another spot to put this in, so I hope this is proper.

 

Using the Analogue NT Mini, capturing the 1080p footage, results in the obvious black bars from the 4:3 aspect of the actual game footage.

 

 

Any advice on editing that to show the game footage as the background, cropped to fill and blurred; so the black bars will be gone? I only have iMovie, but willing to get Final Cut Pro if necessary. Any other editing software suggested is nice too.

 

Thanks.

 

I would suggest considering your target playback device. If you are only targeting widescreen 1080p then leave the footage as-is. It's considered bad practice to add pillar boxes or other "filling" imagery unless you are editorializing (eg youtube) to mix it with content that is 16:9 ASR. Otherwise it just makes the data larger and lowers the compress-ability. The reason is, if you are simply playing the footage back, there are 4:3 devices out there (Eg iPad's) that adding this padding will make less of the playback screen available.

 

If you are actually capturing at 16:9 from the NT Mini, then you would want to reduce the zoom to 4x and crop the entire windowbox.

Edited February 19, 2017 by Kismet

[F34R]

 

I would suggest considering your target playback device. If you are only targeting widescreen 1080p then leave the footage as-is. It's considered bad practice to add pillar boxes or other "filling" imagery unless you are editorializing (eg youtube) to mix it with content that is 16:9 ASR. Otherwise it just makes the data larger and lowers the compress-ability. The reason is, if you are simply playing the footage back, there are 4:3 devices out there (Eg iPad's) that adding this padding will make less of the playback screen available.

 

If you are actually capturing at 16:9 from the NT Mini, then you would want to reduce the zoom to 4x and crop the entire windowbox.

I appreciate that perspective. Thank you. I'm not adding anything to it as seen in that picture. Maybe I'm not understanding what you mean by that in respect to that picture.

Edited February 19, 2017 by F34R

[Austin]

I have no experience with iMovie, but any other professional video editing suite can do what you are looking for.

[Kismet]

I appreciate that perspective. Thank you. I'm not adding anything to it as seen in that picture. Maybe I'm not understanding what you mean by that in respect to that picture.

 

Basically you are either capturing for "archival" (museum footage, source videos for compilations) or capturing for "editorial" (youtube, streaming), the latter is usually done with USB capture devices that use cheap h.264 fixed function cores, so you get the best quality out of them by making sure the compression aligns on the same block sizes.

 

The former you want to retain the maximum quality without sacrificing compressability. So you need to have an even-multiple capture (eg 1x,2x,4x) if you're capturing it pre-scaled from the NT Mini. If this means the source video is captured with pillarboxes or window boxes, you'd crop those out. MPEG video codecs prefer even-sized frames and power of 2 blocksizes. Other codecs (eg ZMBV (dosbox), lagarith, huffyuv and so forth) don't use block-based compression, so they will compress a solid black area as if it were one pixel per scan line. MPEG video codecs on the other hand will treat "blank space" as non-moving space in the compression, so if you have pillarbars or windowsboxes, those are still treated as if the entire screen is filled regardless of what is in it.

[F34R]

Yeah, I'm doing it for youtube/facebook, and using Elgato HD60. I appreciate the replies for sure.

[godslabrat]

I couldn't find another spot to put this in, so I hope this is proper.

 

Using the Analogue NT Mini, capturing the 1080p footage, results in the obvious black bars from the 4:3 aspect of the actual game footage.

 

 

Any advice on editing that to show the game footage as the background, cropped to fill and blurred; so the black bars will be gone? I only have iMovie, but willing to get Final Cut Pro if necessary. Any other editing software suggested is nice too.

 

Thanks.

 

 

My advice is that doing that would look like total ass.

[F34R]

 

 

My advice is that doing that would look like total ass.

Thanks for being straight forward about it lol.

[Austin]

 

 

My advice is that doing that would look like total ass.

 

All a matter of taste. A bunch of people do it and it seems to look fine to me as the viewer.

 

I personally don't do it myself and use a different, non-intrusive backdrop instead. Really though, the point is to fill the extra screen space that would normally consist of black borders.

 

To the OP, you are probably going to have to invest in better video editing software to do what you want. That said, I would check to see if there is an updated version to iMovie. It's to my understanding the software got better through time and it might let you do more than one video track now (to do what you want, you need two video tracks). If not, then I would check to see if there is a version of Premiere Elements on the Mac. It's the consumer version of Premiere and I know it's available on the PC, and costs anywhere from $50 to $80 NIB on eBay. It looks gimpy but it's still powerful software. After that, Final Cut Pro is probably your best bet. Maybe see if there is an older version you can buy that you can transfer the license on (that's what I did with Sony Vegas Pro on the PC), otherwise it's $300. Adobe Premiere Pro is a great tool, but it requires a subscription plan from Adobe and probably isn't worth the price unless you're making bank from doing your videos. (It's $20 a month for Premiere Pro by itself, more if you want things like Photoshop).

[F34R]

 

All a matter of taste. A bunch of people do it and it seems to look fine to me as the viewer.

 

I personally don't do it myself and use a different, non-intrusive backdrop instead. Really though, the point is to fill the extra screen space that would normally consist of black borders.

 

To the OP, you are probably going to have to invest in better video editing software to do what you want. That said, I would check to see if there is an updated version to iMovie. It's to my understanding the software got better through time and it might let you do more than one video track now (to do what you want, you need two video tracks). If not, then I would check to see if there is a version of Premiere Elements on the Mac. It's the consumer version of Premiere and I know it's available on the PC, and costs anywhere from $50 to $80 NIB on eBay. It looks gimpy but it's still powerful software. After that, Final Cut Pro is probably your best bet. Maybe see if there is an older version you can buy that you can transfer the license on (that's what I did with Sony Vegas Pro on the PC), otherwise it's $300. Adobe Premiere Pro is a great tool, but it requires a subscription plan from Adobe and probably isn't worth the price unless you're making bank from doing your videos. (It's $20 a month for Premiere Pro by itself, more if you want things like Photoshop).

iMovie is still limited. I don't mind investing in the software, so I'm leaning towards the ones you listed. I can use Mac or PC so there's that too. I'll weigh the options and see which out of those will be the best option considering the prices, etc. I appreciate the help.

[Austin]

iMovie is still limited. I don't mind investing in the software, so I'm leaning towards the ones you listed. I can use Mac or PC so there's that too. I'll weigh the options and see which out of those will be the best option considering the prices, etc. I appreciate the help.

 

If PC is an option, a consumer version Sony Vegas is $65 (cheapest I could find a physical copy). Link: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sony-Vegas-Movie-Studio-Platinum-12-NEW-IN-BOX-/332132503377?hash=item4d54a3cf51:g:TykAAOSwWxNYoKcd. They used to be cheaper ($25 - $35), but it's possible the options are drying up since Magix acquired the Vegas product line.

 

Looks like you can get a Photoshop/Premiere Elements combo for $45: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Adobe-Photoshop-Premiere-Elements-10-New-Sealed-in-Box-Win-Mac-Photo-Video-/122362596361?hash=item1c7d610c09:g:qIQAAOSw4A5YqfCm. That's an older version, but you don't need the latest and the greatest for basic gameplay editing. That one linked above is version 10, released in 2011, and has 64-bit support. Version 15 is the most current, and I'm guessing as you get up in versions, they are going to be a little more expensive as you go up in numbers. (Or maybe not.. Here's Version 11 for $33, BIN: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Adobe-Premiere-Elements-11-for-PC-Mac-65193942-OLD-VERSION-FREE-SHIPPING-/172387171173?hash=item2823137b65:g:AB4AAOSwMVdYD7wd).

[F34R]

 

If PC is an option, a consumer version Sony Vegas is $65 (cheapest I could find a physical copy). Link: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sony-Vegas-Movie-Studio-Platinum-12-NEW-IN-BOX-/332132503377?hash=item4d54a3cf51:g:TykAAOSwWxNYoKcd. They used to be cheaper ($25 - $35), but it's possible the options are drying up since Magix acquired the Vegas product line.

 

Looks like you can get a Photoshop/Premiere Elements combo for $45: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Adobe-Photoshop-Premiere-Elements-10-New-Sealed-in-Box-Win-Mac-Photo-Video-/122362596361?hash=item1c7d610c09:g:qIQAAOSw4A5YqfCm. That's an older version, but you don't need the latest and the greatest for basic gameplay editing. That one linked above is version 10, released in 2011, and has 64-bit support. Version 15 is the most current, and I'm guessing as you get up in versions, they are going to be a little more expensive as you go up in numbers.

Again, appreciate it a lot for all the help I've been shown. Respect.

[Austin]

Again, appreciate it a lot for all the help I've been shown. Respect.

 

Check my post again--ended up making quite a few edits with some new links/prices.

 

And yeah, no problem! It's not expensive (or difficult) to get some really solid editing software.