I am working on a video project for a family to give their mother for her 80th birthday. The basic concept is to take about 90 photographs and integrate them into video clips I have shot of family members reminicsing. (The photos are all scanned now, and I am about 1/2 way through optimizing them for video)

The problem was making verticle and square shots fit the 4 to 3 aspect ratio required for output to video tape and or DVD. Kind of like fitting a round peg into a square hole when you consider that cropping a verticle to fit a horizontal space rarely works well.

Using one of the original photos I came up with a template that allows me to integrate a decent crop into a horizontal framework and use the original photo as a backdrop. Personally, I am pretty pleased with the solution, but I thought I would post some examples for some feedback.

These are not my photos to begin with, so I can only work with what was given to me.

Another example...

NTSC...DVD...HDTV.... Yikes! Never ending problems! Sounds like the family will be real happy with something like this. Yours looks to be a creative solution. I'd advise testing a few examples through the video-tape/TV process; I'm a little concerned that your very high contrast border may have "ghosting."

Thanks Misha...

I do have a video monitor connected to my system, so that while I am editing I can see it as it will appear on a TV. The only pain with this is that my video card only supports two monitors, so I lose my second PC monitor while doing this. Maybe I will make enough on this project to by a Matrox Perhelia video card. Then I can have all three working at once.

BTW... I also run the NTSC filter on each image before saving it. So far they look pretty good even with the lower resolution of a standard video monitor.

hmm.... maybe 'Chell can sweat-talk you into doing a tutorial???

incidently... the parhelia hasn't gotten the best reviews. My take would be that you spend 35$ on a used Voodoo3 PCI 2000, and use that as a third monitor. That way, when the tv takes away your second monitor, you'll still have the voodoo with monitor attached (a chintzy one that is, 1024x768 and 6 years old or so), so then you can still have two monitors and the tv. The parhelia's big point is its 3 outputs and one dvi output (which when used nullifies the third monitor). However, ther 32 and 64 meg version, and i believe the 128, have not gotten the best reviews in terms of performance. Might be more worthwhile to get a little 8 meg pci card instead.

Oh well, video, NTSC, etc. I believe I'm a bit lost...hehe. However, I understand the problem you had to overcome. I think it works nicely. I see you move the "top" print where necessary to let the important part of the background be seen. Very nice.

@Slynky...

I have read on number of reviews on the Parhelia as well as other current high end cards as well. My reasons for wanting to go with the matrox are fairly simple.

1. Realiability... I have never had a Matrox card fail, and I have been using them sice 1997.

2. 2D Performance... None of the current cards in this class outperform the Matrox. Radion comes close to overall 2D rendering, but still lags behind.

3. TV/Vido Output... According to every review I have read, nothing else comes close.

4. There are a number of features that cannot be fully utilized until Direct X 9 is available. Most reviewers are banking on this increasing the 3D performance of this card and making an exceptional card for gamers too.

If I were into gaming, I would probably consider something else, but the bottom line is that the card does exactly what I need, and for 2D and TV/video work is unmatched.

Last thing... The one I am considering is the 256 MB version :-P

Getting off the hardware side of things, I've gotta admit I like the way you're presenting these. Good work.... not that we'd have expected anything less ;-) (",)

With DTV already here, you'll be doing a 16 to 9 ratio soon!

You will have to start watching the PBS documentariesin order to jazz up the videos. It is a lot of work, but very much appreciated by the honoree and subsequent generations to follow. One thing we photo nuts can do is scan, catalog and distribute family pictures. With a little text they will be part of the family history. Bill