# How do i crop/zoom in a video im editing?



## -Lithium- (Nov 10, 2010)

As the title says really, what i mean is, i have a video which i want to edit, but only have viewable a certain proportion of it, i want to crop/cut out the other say for example, left side of the video and just have the top right corner (say if video was hypothetically 1600x900 i only want the top right part in say 800x600 due to zooming in/cropping)

I have AVS video editor atm, premier doesnt work for my videos, so if i cant do it in AVS can anyone reccommed a free editing software for me which i can do this?

Thanks in advance!


----------



## zuluclayman (Dec 16, 2005)

I'm not sure that you will get that capability from a free editing package
You say Premiere won't work for your videos - by that I take it you have some version of Premiere on your computer?
If so and it won't accept your video 
what is the source of your video?
what format are they? 
and why doesn't premiere accept it?

Have you tried transcoding (converting) your originals to a more friendly format that premiere will accept? you can do this with Format Factory or probably even AVS video editor.


----------



## -Lithium- (Nov 10, 2010)

Cheers for reply.

How do i do it in premier then? I cant seem to figure it out lol. Its prem CS4 btw.

Nothing fancy, they are only AVI and WMV files, they were recorded using debut video capture as i do a lot of of streaming things a record them directly from my desktop.

I dunno, basically im not sure if im setting up premier properly, what format should i choose during that setup process there is all DV this 50hz pal this (which i gues would be me, im in UK) theres certain 480p 576i 720p etc ive clicked on so many, but whenever i import my videos, they for some reason go black and white, and the image is distorted and looks like its been rotated slighlty, yet they play perfectly in VLC and MPC and all other players, what could be going wrong? this is all the sequence 01 stuff setup when you "create" a new project.

I obviously with this issue cant use the video preview window to see which bits i want and need to edit, so yeah, thats a main problem too as well as trying to crop/zoom, any ideas?


----------



## zuluclayman (Dec 16, 2005)

the best way to get a project setting that suits the majority of your files is to use Format Factory's Media File Info (under "Advanced" tab) to see what pixel dimensions and field order (progressive or interlaced) your files are - if they are High Definition files they will be 1920 x 1280 or 1080 x 720 - if Standard Definition there are a number of possible configurations.
Pick the preset that best matches the majority of footage's pixel dimensions and field order in particular 
OR 
run all the clips through Format Factory and get them to the same format and dimensions - don't upscale smaller clips too much or you will get pixellation.
I no longer have CS4 on my comp so am not sure if this feature was available - once you have opened a project and have imported your clips to the Project panel, drag a clip onto the icon that looks like a piece of paper with a folded corner at the bottom of the Project panel and it will (if the feature works in CS4) give you new timeline whose settings match your footage.



> but whenever i import my videos, they for some reason go black and white


this is often caused by an incompatible codec - try running the clips through Format Factory first transcode them to .avi leaving the pixel dimensions as they were (unless you need to change them - see above)

If you get a project that works for you to crop or zoom
*crop:* you can do this by dragging a "crop" effect from the Effects panel onto the clip on the timeline, then go to Effect Controls tab in top middle panel and adjust the parameters there.
*zoom:* select the clip on the timeline you want to zoom into then in the Effect Controls panel choose Motion>Scale and enter a value - if you want to zoom in (or out) slowly you will need to keyframe the scale - if you are unsure of how to use keyframes Youtube has lots of tutorials - it's a bit long for posts here :smile:

hope this helps


----------



## -Lithium- (Nov 10, 2010)

Thanks! Ill have a look into everything you said and give it a go in the morning , cheers.


----------



## zuluclayman (Dec 16, 2005)

another important parameter to look at in FF when getting ready to make a project in Premiere is fps (frames per second) - depending where you live (PAL or NTSC land) it will be 24fps, 30 (or close to) or 60 for NTSC and 25 or 50 for PAL.


----------

