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Expression Encoder 3, can not crop?
Expression Encoder 3, can not crop?
- There seems to be a missing element in EE3, that was present in the previous prouducts. I am referring to "Sync size to crop" option that placed the yellow bars along the red ones of the crop in the video preview window and allowed the output video to actually be cropped. Although the instruction manual claims it is still in there, I can't see it anywhere. Am I missing something?
All Replies
- The crop feature is in the Enhance tab, in Pre-processing->Crop. To enable the crop rectangle, simply click on the "Crop" checkbox and you'll be able to control the cropping.
- Proposed As Answer byEric JuteauMSFT, ModeratorSunday, October 11, 2009 11:58 PM
- Sorry, I think you misunderstood. I am aware of the cropping feature being there, however without the "sync size to crop option" the cropping has no effect on the resulting video.
- The cropping should definitely affect which parts of your source video end up in your output video. When you crop you should see anything outside the red rectangle in a more faded colour to indicate that it won't be part of the output. Are you not seeing this behaviour?
Regards
Dean. - I do see this behaviour in the application yes, but the output video does not end up cropped. In EE 1 and 2, there used to be a yellow field that indicated the actual size the video would end up being, this would appear once sync size to crop was selected, which seems to be absent now.
- That's strange, what you see in the red rectangle is the video that should be in the output. Any video outside the red rectangle shouldn't be part of the output. Can you send a screen shot of your preview window along with what you see in the output?
Regards
Dean. - Alright, I have just encoded a sample to demonstrate this behaviour.Here is EE3 set up to crop the borders of the media, the resulting output should be 1920 x 816:And as you can see, the resulting video is completely unaffected, remaining at 1920 x 1080:http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/2618/00055wmvsnapshot0004200.jpgThis worked perfectly fine in EE1 & 2, the Sync size to crop feature is missing now. This used to be how you made the resulting video match the desired crop areas. If you simply used the red bars in the older versions, the result would indeed be the same.
- There's an extra option that reads "Sync size to Crop " which will do what you want. However after days of searching i have no idea where it is.
- Thanks for the image of EE3 I see now.
What's happening is that although you've done a crop, the output size (on the Encode tab) is still 1920 x 1080 so Encoder is adding the black bars (which just happen to be in your source anyway so you can't really tell) to preserve the aspect ratio. I agree that in this mode when the output size is set to Source we should do a better job and default to your crop output.
However you can also do these an easier way (without having to drag the crop rectangle or entering specific values).
Import your video.
Choose your desired bitrate
Choose Source as your Size Mode from the encode tab.
Go down to the Video Aspect Ratio and choose custom.
Then enter 2.35 in the first field of the display aspect ratio underneath. (or whichever aspect ratio you desire)
Turn on Force square pixels to ensure you're outputting square pixels.
Then go to the Enhance tab and clip Crop (it should automatically choose the right portion)
Click Encode
For no extra charge :-), I recorded a video for you. Let me know if it helps.
You can try YouTube. Switching to HD and watching full screen will give a better experience.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-r509MsopcU
and I also put a copy on Facebook if you're there
http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=503765335&k=56F262TXPTXDYDFHWGWVPVTUT3EEW4&oid=1073226890646
Regards
Dean.- Proposed As Answer byDean RoweMSFTThursday, October 29, 2009 6:27 AM
- Dean,Thank you for that detailed explanation and video walk-through. This method or perhaps workaround does indeed work, but could I ask that you pass along the message that the old system was a lot less confusing? This almost appears to be broken behaviour, and your documentation still refers to the now missing Sync size to crop option. I am sure that for some jobs a standard aspect ratio will not quite cut the mustard either, and it is beyond the skill of some to exactly calculate the correct AR per given pixels.
No guarantees :-), but I'm pretty confident we'll get the ability to sync the output size to the crop size back in the next version.
Regards
Dean.No guarantees :-), but I'm pretty confident we'll get the ability to sync the output size to the crop size back in the next version.
Regards
Dean.
