Identifying and Keeping Correct Video Proportions (Aspect Ratio)
Identifying your clip's aspect ratio:
In order to keep the correct aspect ratio in your fan video, you need to look at your "source" (original VOB files). A lot of times it should be obvious to you—just compare your VOB files to the three most common aspect ratios (see previous page) and identify which aspect ratio it has. But, if you have trouble figuring it out, go to "Window >> Movie Info" in Quicktime. Also, MPEG Streamclip will also give you similar information: Go to File >> Show Stream Info.
"Movie Info" as seen in Quicktime Player.
How MPEG Streamclip displays different VOB files:
Each DVD has its own way of handling frame size. When you open your ripped VOB files in MPEG Streamclip (you'll need the MPEG-2 Playback component to get this to work), you'll see that some DVDs "pad" the VOB with black letterbox space on top, bottom, or sides:
The actual film of The Phantom of the Opera DVD (above) has 2.35:1 aspect ratio, but it is fitting into 16:9 dimensions—they just "pad" the top and bottom with black bars so it fills out the 16:9 frame size. Vidders should treat clips like this as if they are 16:9 all through the editing process. The black bars can be trimmed off when the finished video is being prepared for the web.
This DVD from the '90s TV show "Due South" is 4:3 aspect ratio. But you'll see a tiny sliver of black on both sides.
This DVD ("Van Helsing") is almost 16:9, but there's a little bit of black bar on the bottom of the screen, and a tiny sliver of black on the top.
Okay, now that we've established that each DVD has its own unique dimensions (which are usually conveniently "padded" to fit either 4:3 or 16:9) we can go on to the next step:
Converting, importing, and exporting video clips with appropriate aspect ratio >>