Cropping videos
 

When exporting videos for the internet, I want to crop them so that the image is more consistent to what a viewer would see on a TV. Would it be better for me to crop the video in Premiere Pro (I would also have to hit the "zoom" box so the video would fill in the black spaces). Or would the quality be better if the video was cropped in the compression program? (such as Cleaner or Squeeze). I thought that pixels might be stretched out when cropped in Premier Pro. Any thoughts?

If you're trying to preserve for the web what is left of your piece after a TV overscans it you might start by laying an action safe grid over any part of it, then use the clip filter to bring your edges in to the action safe point. Once you know what % that is for each edge you can process a complete AVI to those settings and subsequent compression will not be slowed by having to make cropping decisions - but of course you'll have to render the effect so time burns somewhere no matter how you do it. Overscan varies from TV to TV. I recently saw my titles partially obscured on an old 32" unit, and they were in the title safe area.

David Hurdon

Is there a difference between cropping in your NLE or cropping in your compressor? I use two separate programs, and what I do is export my movie from the NLE, then compress it using the compressor. Each one offers the option to crop the movie. However, would the quality be better by compressing in one or the other?

I'm no expert, Chris, but it's my understanding that it's easier for the compressor to manage an input with the black edges already there, as the consistency of their appearance makes "decisions" about how to compress each frame simpler. It can concentrate its bit budget on what does change.

David Hurdon

Alright, I'll keep cropping with the compressor then. Thanks David.