Converting 4x3 to 16x9

[rpetrie]

Forgive me - I’ve asked this question before, got a method that worked for me and can’t remember the specific steps of how to accomplish this.

I’ve got a video which was mistakenly encoded as 4x3 (1440 x 1080) and needs to be 16x9 (preferably 1280 x 720) to be properly viewed. No combination of settings - the video mode, cropping the source and setting the export parameters - seems to accomplish this.

I’m missing something critical.
thanks
r.

[MusicalBox]

• In Shotcut, go to Setting > Video Mode
• Choose one of the HD 720 modes (There are more at the bottom of the list in Non-Broadcast)
• Import your 1440 x 1080 file in Shotcut
• Go to Filters and add a Size, Position & Rotate filter

You should see this

• On the Size line, change 960 for 1280

You should see this:

Export

[Hudson555x]

Everything @MusicalBox just said…

Instead of Size, Position & Rotate, try Crop:Source, check the box for Center.
Just an alternative of doing the same thing.

[Austin]

@rpetrie

mistakenly encoded as 4x3 (1440 x 1080) and needs to be 16x9

Is the 4:3 video just the center portion of the original 16:9 video? If so, the left/right edges are lost and would need to be retrieved from the original video. Stretching 4:3 into 16:9 would be just that… a stretch, and look distorted. Unless you do what @MusicalBox did above, which also implicitly zoomed in the video and cropped some of the top and bottom off to avoid the stretch/distortion look.

Or is all the 16:9 video content there, but squished to 4:3 using a non-square pixel ratio? If so, then do what @MusicalBox showed above except change the size mode to Distort, and set the coordinates to 1280x720. This will stretch the 4:3 back out to 16:9 without cropping top and bottom.

[rpetrie]

Thank you all for responding. All three methods worked well. I found that Austin’s addition preserved the side edges of the video which was and improvement. The only thing I needed to add to the size, position & rotate filter (besides the correct size values and distort) was the positions needed to be zeroed out or the video would be off-center. Starting with crop source - center, did not correct this after the size, position & rotate filter was added.

Thanks all - this is different than the last solution, and I promise to record and remember this one.

r.