How do i rotate a video without clipping off parts of it?

Question

Can someone tell me how to do this?  I know how to rotate from the help forums:
Rotate a clip
Select the clip in the Timeline.
In the Effects view, click the Edit Effects button.
Expand the Motion effect in the Properties view, and do one of the following:Drag the underlined value to the right of Rotation.
Click Rotate Left or Rotate Right to rotate the clip 90° in either direction.
But when i do this, it chops off the top and bottom portions of my video.  I instructed it to leave video aspect ratio, but it wont do so.  It still chops off the top and bottom.
Any suggestions?  If it helps, its a .avi movie as recorded from a digital camera.
BTW, my free Google Picasa did this in seconds with no aspet ration change with 1 button.....just sayin'

Answer 1

Matthew,
Actually, it did keep the Aspect Ratio, as it is defined, but instead of a horizontal Aspect Ratio of say 4:3, you now have a vertical Aspect Ratio of 4:3. If it kept the horizontal, your image would be squashed in one dimension and then stretched in the other - not what you would likely want.
What you need to do is now treat your vertical image. In most cases, I find it preferable to use the fixed Effect>Motion>Scale, and then effectively crop off parts of the top, or the bottom, or both. This has the disadvantage of having to Scale the image up, and it will begin to degrade in quality, so keep a close eye out for that.
Depending on a few factors, one can use certain artistic treatments to use the vertical image in your horizontal Frame: one could use it as a PiP (Picture in Picture), one could create a background, and just use Motion>Scale to drop the vertical dimension to match the vertical dimension of the Frame, letting the background show on probably both sides. Some videographers will shoot two shots with the camera 90 degrees out of orientation, i.e. on its side, when they want a "split-screen," i.e. PiP with two, side-by-side images, and just Rotate both Clips, and align them in the horizontal frame.
Now, what was your purpose for shooting with the camera on its side? What effect were you trying to obtain?
If this was a mounting issue, such as the camera had to be mounted on its side to get it where it was needed, then the trick is to frame less tightly, knowing that you will be effectively cropping off some of the image, when you Rotate.
Good luck,
Hunt