Hello,
A major disadvantage of Shotcut - in addition to the frequent aborts - is that the settings for clips in the playlist cannot be made for all clips at the same time. For example, I have to change the aspect ratio for each individual clip. It could be slightly improved: mark all clips and change the settings together. I would have expected that, but it doesn’t work.
Regards
Highwayman
How are you changing the aspect ratio for each clip?
I have to click each clip and then go to settings. Then I can change the aspect ratio for that one clip.
Sorry for not understanding.
In Settings, there is only the option to change the Aspect Ratio with the Video Mode.
For each video clip, there is a properties window in which you can change the aspect ratio.
Sorry, I chose the German language. It’s the properties window I mean. When I select more than one clip, I can go to the properties windows and change the aspect ratio. But it works only for one of the clips. So I have to do it for all the hundred clips, or maybe only ten clips.
Oups, I found it out. I import the first clip and set the aspect ratio. All clips imported after that get the same properties. This is OK.
That means you have Video Mode set to Automatic.
Setting the Video Mode to a specific preset before you bring in your source clips saves you from doing a lot of extra work if they are of the same aspect ratio.
I wasn’t sure if you’re importing clips of all sorts of different aspect ratios. There are filters that could be used to help out your workflow.
No, sorry, I set video mode individually. I mean the properties of the import clips. All clips are of the same format, 720x576 pixels, i.e. 5:4. They must be displayed in 4:3 format, but with the correct aspect ratio. So I have to set the aprect ratio to 4:3 in the import properties. Otherwise I get a horizontally compressed image (eggheads).
Where can I find the filters?
Ok, let me see if I understand you correctly.
I had set the video mode to 640x480 (4:3), which is a Video Mode preset in Shotcut.
I put a red color clip on V1 to show the difference in aspect ratios.
On V2, I have a 4-second video clip with a resolution of 720x576 (5:4)
I went to properties as you have done and changed the Aspect Ratio to 4:3. This will distort the original video.
Another way to accomplish the same is with filters. Filter the track (V1 or V2, etc). In this example V2 is the track I have filtered. Use the Size, Position & Rotate (English) filter. Sorry, I don’t know the German translation.
No clips on this track have a filter applied to them.
Without the filter for the green clip with the 4:3 aspect ratio Video Mode:
The most common aspect ratio for clips with a resolution of 720x576 is 4x3 (the pixels are not square). For example, here is the properties panel from a PAL test clip that I have:
The purpose of the aspect ratio setting in the properties panel is to correct clips that are not properly signaled in the file. Is that the case with your clips? When you open a clip in Shotcut, does the properties panel show “5:4”? If so, I wonder if there is a setting in your camera or capture device to specify a correct aspect ratio. If that is not possible, perhaps you want to find a way to batch correct all your files so they signal the correct aspect ratio.
Can you give us more information about your source clips?
These are the properties after import:
The picture is compressed horizontally, the plate is not round. It must be displayed in 4:3.
The picture is compressed horizontally, the plate is not round. It must be displayed in 4:3.
And the scan mode is wrong.
I need to make the following changes:
Looks better. I need to crop and resize the clip in the previous process.
That is helpful. Your clips are definitely not signaling the aspect ratio correctly. The aspect ratio setting in the properties panel is design to correct clips in situations like these. But it it is not intended for batch operations on many clips. So using that correction method will be time consuming for you to change each one.
Here are a couple of options/ideas for your consideration…
Can you change settings in the capture device so that it will signal correctly?
You could add all the clips to Shotcut, save your project and then use “find/replace” features in a text editor to change the aspect ratio for all the clips in the project file itself. Then re-open in Shotcut and they would all be changed
It appears that your capture device is also adding some black around the top and sides. So even if you correct the aspect ratio, you will still need to apply crop or SPR filters to each clip to remove the black. If you are comfortable with command line, we could probably help you come up with an FFMpeg command that would loop through each file, crop the black, and correct the aspect ratio. This would be a fair amount of work, and depending on how many clips you have, it might be faster to manually fix all the clips in Shotcut.
Now with previous cropping / resizing:
No, that’s not right. It shows the properties from the first clip even if I select a different clip in the playlist. Very ugly. Could be improved.
In the Playlist, Properties and Filters does not reflect what is selected. You need to open the item into the Source player by double-clicking it to see and change those things.
