Black bars on export/changing aspect ratio

[yodenil]

Hello all, first of all thank you for the various replies to many topics which have helped me a lot along my first steps to video editing.
I am starting a 2nd video project (home music clip), but this time working with 3 different aspect ratios as I’m collaborating with other musicians.
I have the following ratios:
1440x1080 (mine: bass, vocals and guitar)
1920x1440 (drummer)
3840x2160 (4k - soloist)
4K was making my whole PC lag so I reduced to “HD ready” (1280x720) via VLC, and all went well as it’s the same ratio. (16:9)

For the others (4:3 ratio) it requires cropping top and bottom, so I used Shotcut to individually crop and export each video, and THEN add them to my main project (also on ShotCut of course), with all videos set @1280x720p so there’s no confusion afterwards.
I succesfully managed to crop the other videos to 1280x720, selecting a custom 1280x720p video mode for the project, importing the 1920x1440 video, cropping and exporting to 1280x720p. On the project preview all is well, no black bars and 16:9, but when I export it, it crops even more on top and bottom! (cutting drummer’s face ) Therefore the format is 16:9 INCLUDING black bars.

Any idea why it’s cropping even more ?

Side question: The original drummer’s video appears 4:3 on playback as it’s supposed to, but mine appears like a 16:9 when I import it (even on playback with VLC or other program…) Strange no ?

It’s been driving me crazy… Your help would be most welcome
Thank you in advance!

[shotcut]

Are you changing anything in Export? If so, restart, do not change anything in Export, and just click Export File.

Did you use Proxy?

@yodenil

selecting a custom 1280x720p video mode

Why is it custom? What is wrong with the included 720p video modes?

[yodenil]

Hi! Thank you for your quick reply, sorry I didn’t catch it earlier.
I tried again without changing anything in Export, and using a preset 720p 60fps mode, but still the same issue.
I had used a custom one to set it to 30fps, as the videos I’m editing are between 25 and 30 fps.
I didn’t use proxy (well I don’t think I did )