Aspect Ratio in Premiere Pro

I use Premiere Pro, upgraded from 6.5 It's been years since I have been active, but a friend just gave me 200 raw JPG's from her Nikon D50 to use in a project. When I import them into Pro, only 20% of the image displays. The "Interperet Footage" choice is not highlighted and several other clip options are not available.
Camera Raw updates have not worked for me and there is no info I found I could use at the Nikon site, any suggestions would be apreciated.

The first thing to do is to re-size all images in Photoshop (PS). Unless you will want any panning on zoomed-out images, I'd go with the dimension of your video frame. I also set the PAR to match my Project's. I have Actions set up for most common Project specs. and can Batch Process (File>Automate>Batch, or similar, depending on version #) an entire folder with hundreds of high-rez images in moments. I always set my Destination Folder to a newly created sub-folder with a name like "Final PSD's" I keep things in .PSD format, but TIFF or JPEG (keep compression low, i.e. higher number in PS) work too.
I Import these into PrPro, and they are sized correctly. I believe that the re-sizing algorithms in PS are superior to doing the same thing in PrPro with Motion>Scale.
Working with images that are appropriately sized will also not tax your system, and will reduce the chance of any errors. If you MUST use large images, then the Motion>Scale Effect is what you want. I just feel that the results of a PS sized image is better.
Good luck,
Hunt

Similar Messages

Aspect Ratio in Premiere Pro CS3

I have imported a Quicktime movie (a desktop recording of a software created using SnapZ Pro) which was recorded in SnapZ Pro with frame dimensions of 720 x 480 pixels. When I import this quicktime movie file into my Premiere Pro CS3 project, the settings for which is a frame size of 720 x 480, it looks distorted in both the source and program windows. If both the imported file, and the project settings match dimensions, shouldn't the imported file view properly?
Any help appreciated.

Maybe the SnapZ Pro captured video has a PAR (Pixel Aspect Ratio) of 1 instead of 0.9 which it would be for standard NTSC DV.
The solution depends on what you are planning to do with your movie:
If it only has to play on a computer you could import the footage in a custom project (Desktop) where you would set the PAR to 1.
If you plan to output to DV tape or burn a DVD you could resize the video to 640x480 inside a 720x480 frame. That would leave black "pillars" on both sides.
Or you could re-capture at 720x480 with a 0.9 PAR (if SnapZ Pro offers that option). Should the software lack a PAR setting you could instead capture at 720x534.

Video clips from Canon camcorder have wrong aspect ratio in Premiere Elements 11

I recently purchased Adobe Premiere Elements 11 and I'm having trouble importing clips from my Canon FS300 camcorder.The camcorder records widescreen video at 720 x 480 pixels with a 16:9 aspect ratio (presumably using non-square pixels) The clips play correctly in Windows Media Player, VLC, Real Player and several other players. They do not display correctly in Quicktime or when imported into PE11, showing a 4:3 frame. I have tried just about every New Project setting in PE11, but the closest result I can achieve is a 4:3 picture in a 16:9 frame. If I run the clips through the VLC Convert utility and output them using the Video - MPEG-2 + MPGA (TS) codec, the resulting clips import and play correctly in PE11. Is there some obscure setting I need to implement when importing these clips, or is PE11 just incapable of recognising file formats which seem to be no problem for most video players. I assume I have the necessary codecs installed, as the clips play correctly in other players.

Axxel CA
Thank you for your findings and comments on this matter of the handling of .the mod widescreen by Premiere Elements. One continues to learn whether they be a beginning, intermediate, or advanced user of Premiere Elements. That is the rewarding part of this type of discussion.
I appreciated the manner in which you introduced the subject, stated the problem, gave your findings, and made your conclusions. I was particularly interested in the list of can do video editors. You need to go with what works for you.
After your previous post and that of SG, I went searching for a .mod widescreen online to experiment with in Premiere Elements 11. I could not find one at the moment. But then I remembered that someone had sent me a sample for troubleshooting a few years back. I found it finally. The results are presented for interest value and hopefully not to stir up controversy.
a. .mod to .mpg had no affect on the 16:9 issue in Premiere Elements 11...expected.
b. taking the .mod widescreen into Premiere Elements 11 via the Video Importer had no affect on the 16:9 issue in Premiere Elements 11...expected.
so far we seem to be in agreement in our findings.
The only video editor that I have of the 4 that you mentioned that worked in this regard was Windows Live Movie Maker. Windows Live Movie Maker came with my Windows 7 Professional SP1 64 bit computer so I took a look at the problem in that program. When I tried to import the .mod widescreen into that program via its Add Videos and Photos, it shutdown the program (.mod or .mpg file extenstion). Yet, when I imported that same file into Premiere Elements 11 on the same computer as Windows Live Movie Maker, it opened with no problem, but with the 16:9 issue that I could correct with the Interpret Footage feature.
True, that was a sampling of one .mod widescreen file. But the statement of the comparsion was unexpected. Based on that, if you had not planned to, please consider the tryout of your next video editor for use with the .mod widescreen to avoid unexpected results which will delay you moving forward with your video projects.
Success with your video editing projects whatever you decision,
ATR

Dvd aspect ratio on premiere 9

Why is the aspect ratio fine on my computer and reverts to standard screen size on my dvd player for my TV? It cuts the edges of the movie right off. My dvd player isn"t that old, or is it?

Welcome to the forum.
It could be either a setting on the TV (more likely), or on the DVD player (possible).
I would check on the TV's menu, to see what the options are, and which one has been chosen.
Now, to make sure that I am on the same page, as you, did you set up a Widescreen 16:9 Project, and author to a Widescreen 16:9 DVD? The authoring should be exactly what your Project was set to.
When you test the DVD on a computer, with a DVD software player, such as the free MediaPlayer Classic HC, does it display as Widescreen 16:9? If so, then it is very likely a setting on the TV, or the DVD player.
Good luck,
Hunt

The (new) Premiere pixel aspect ratio is wrong for my PAL DV cam footage

I've had a Sony TRV-950E DV-cam since 2003. I've been shooting DV PAL in widescreen.
I just bought Elements 12 to edit my footage, and discovered that the pixel aspect ratio for D1/DV PAL Widescreen has been updated to 1.46 (old value 1.42).
The theory behind this change is that video recorded on 720x576 is slightly wider than 16:9 and that the 16:9 portion is 704x576.
Unfortunately this is not correct for my footage! I've captured the video from my DV-cam (by firewire) and opened it in Premere and it is streched to be shown as 1050x576.
So I did a test:
I filmed a steady shot of a perfect circle and captured the video from the camera and opened it in Premiere. The pixel ascpect ratio 1.46 makes the display 1050x576.
The question is: Am I seeing this displayed as a perfect circle now?
This can be tested:
I make a picture of a perfect circle in Photoshop (square pixels) with size 1024x576. I imported this picture into the Premiere project, and match the two circles: The filmed one, and the Photoshop one.
They DO NOT match! The one on the video is slightly stretched in width.
So then I stretch the Photoshop picture in width to become 1050x576. I then import this picture into the project. And now I have a perfect match between the circles!
This means that my DV camera actually records a 100% 16:9 picture on all the pixels 720x576 - and not a slightly wider picture with the 16:9 part being in 704x576 (which is the reason for the change in pixel aspect ratio from 1.42 to 1.46).
I have some HD scenes that I want to import (and downscale) into my SD project also, and I also have a lot of still pictures.
Unless I can change the setup i Elements to the correct ratio 1.42, these stills and sqare-pixel-video (HD) should ideally be streched from 1024x576 to 1050x576 to match (become equally stretched as) all the SD footage.
How do I solve this?
I just bought Elements 12 three days ago.
(I just tried opening the captured video in Windows Movie Maker - and that program must use pixel aspect ratio 1.42 since the video is diplayed correctly as 1024x576 with a perfect circle)
Regards,
Tom from Norway

Tom
After much thought and exploration and experimentation, I have come to the conclusion that there is no practical purpose for doing anything other than importing your media into the project and editing/exporting. I find no distortion in doing so, be it in the video samples that you posted or in still models that I created for the pixel aspect ratio 1.422 vs 1.4587 for D1/DV PAL Widescreen.
If you have not already, please read the following about the Adobe DV Widescreen Pixel Aspect Ratio change from 1.422 to 1.456.
Please start in the first link which gives some get subsequent links in it
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/673877
http://www.mikeafford.com/blog/2009/03/pal-d1-dv-widescreen-square-pixel-settings-in-after -effects-cs4-vs-cs3/
Also, you may find the following article on square and non square pixels of interest. It uses the PAL DV Widescreen 1.422 pixel aspect ratio in its discussion.
http://library.creativecow.net/articles/gerard_rick/pixel_madness.php
Aside from the explanation for the rights and wrongs of the matter, this is what I actually observed taking your PAL DV AVI Widescreen and PAL MPEG2.mpg Widescreen into the same Premiere Elements 12 Windows PAL DV Widescreen project. Along with your video files were still images that I created in Photoshop Elements 11 Full Editor:
1024 x 576 document with a red circle on Layer 2 of the Layers Palette
1050 x 576 document with a red circle on Layer 1 of the Layers Palette.
The red circles were superimposed in creation. The difference in the pixel dimensions between the two are evidenced by Layer 1 content peaking through on the left and right.
The gpsot readout for pixel aspect ratio for each of the videos was
a. Your PAL DV AVI 720 x 576 Widescreen = 1.422
b. Your PAL MPEG2.mpg 720 x 576 Widescreen = 1.422
Each of the Photoshop Elements documents (circles) saved as .psd files 1050 x 576 pixels.
When all were taken into Premiere Elements 12 project manually set for PAL DV Widescreen, they looked like the following, no display of distortion.......
PAL DV AVI Widescreen 720 x 576 (now the pixel aspect ratio in Premiere Elements Properties was shown as 1.4587, not the 1.422 seen in gspot before import)
PAL MPEG2.mpg Widescreen 720 x 576 (now the pixel aspect ratio in Premiere Elements 12 Properties was shown as 1.4587, not the 1.422 seen in gspot before import)
Edit Menu/Preferences/General with check mark next to "Default Scale to Frame Size" was in effect.
As for the red circles stills (1050 x 576 to equate to the square pixel version of 720 x 576 widescreen) did not distort when brought into the Premiere Elements 12 Edit area monitor which is established by the PAL DV Widescreen project preset with the pixel aspect ratio = 1.4587.
The jpg version of the Photoshop Elements document (.psd) 1050 x 576 pixels (square pixels) looked like:
And, when this Timeline was exported Publish+Share/Computer/AVI with the DV PAL Widescreen preset, there was no distortion in the export. It looked undistorted as it did before export.
So, unless I am overlooking a key point here, I cannot see a reason why you cannot use the video sources that you presented for sampling as weil as stills with the 1050 x 576 pixel dimensions.
The only time I see any distortion possibilities is if you use a player that does not recognize the 16:9 flag that stretches the 720 x 576 to 1050 x 576 for display after encoding.
Trying to convert Premiere Elements 12 which uses the 1.4587 pixel aspect ratio for PAL DV Widescreen into a Premiere Elements 7 which uses the 1.422 pixel aspect ratio for PAL DV Widescreen is up hill in spite of creative thinking on your side.
Please review and let me know if you are seeing another different from what I am reporting with the samples that you posted.
Thank you.
ATR

Can the screen be cropped to and exported at a custom aspect ratio?

I think I'm needing Premier to do something it's just not designed to do. What I need to do is to take five or six different screen and audio captures of the same event (a 3D virtual reality instructional session), each representing a different person's view of that event, assemble those in a split screen, synchronize them to the designated "main" capture's audio, delete the other audio tracks, and add CG title labeling each one. The effect is like looking at a display showing six security camera images. From what I can determine, it is possible to do those things in Premier.
However, what I then need to do is to crop out any extra space to the left and right of that split-screen image and export the file as a .mov with the aspect ratio produced by the cropping so that the videos are as large as possible and are not distorted from resizing them to fit the standard aspect ratio. Depending on the size of the screencaps, the resulting .mov might have nearly a 1:1 ratio. What is critical for this is that the video be as large as possible and the "black" space be as small as possible so that the person who comes in later to analyze these composite videos can see everything as clearly as possible. I also need to crop on the fly; because these images aren't always captured at the same size, it is impossible to preset a size for the resulting video.
We've been using a screen capture tool to do this that works but is a pain; clips can only be moved and resized by mouse-drags, and the software has to import to and export from its own proprietary format, which is very slow. However, ever piece of "real" video editing software I've looked at only seems to export in TV or film aspect ratios. Quicktime Pro looked for a bit like the best bet, but it doesn't seem to be able to handle multiple audio tracks (which are necessary since I have to synchronize tracks by ear much of the time).
Is what I'm describing--exporting .mov files while preserving custom aspect ratios that are created by cropping during editing--something Premier can do? If so, would it be something fairly easy for complete novices to do?

medeamajic wrote:
On a Mac based system ScreenFlow might work best but on the PC side FRAPS might work best. You can do what you want to do with Premiere Pro once you record the screen capture. As Stephen_Spider mentioned you might need to crop and even resize the images. FRAPS can record at 1/4 the screen resolution and still have decent results. PP CS 5.5 can play several layers (6 PIPs) of the FRAPS codec at 1/4 resolution in realtime.
Thanks, but we cannot change the screen recording process. According to the study's protocols, the virtual world has to be full-screen or almost nearly so during the session, and that full screen has to be captured for analysis. Resizing the screen captures is not a problem (especially since I already said I'm doing that), but if you're saying that Premier can only play back up to six screen captures simultaneously if they're captured at 1/4 screen, then that's a deal-breaker right there.
By the way, here's approximately what each of the completed composite videos looks like:
Screencap 1
Screencap 2
Screencap 3
Screencap 4
Screencap 5
Screencap 6
Each screencaptures is resized to the largest consistent size that will fit into this format, and then the resulting video is cropped to the outside border. If there are only five screencaptures, I simply center the single one on the bottom on the "center line."
And, to be clear (though I've said this several times already), this is something that is already being done. We probably have more than 60 of these .mov files, each around 45 minutes long, with five or six synchronized screen captures in each. Frame rate etc. has not been any issue with these, and neither has playback of the .mov file from HD or DVD.
Message was edited by: singerm2

Dvd burned in premiere pro cc does not fill the screen. Desire a 4:3 aspect ratio

I am using premiere pro cc. I burned a dvd several times,trying different presets. On each occasion the dvd never fills the screen. It does not lool like letterbox ( 16 x 9 ). There is space all around the picture / video. Need assistance fast,project is already late.Thanks in advance.
Theo Smith

I sent the screenshot via an e-mail attachment. I wasn't aware that
attachments could not be forwarded this way. I will send it again. First time
I've utilized this service.
In a message dated 3/8/2015 10:15:23 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
[email protected] writes:
Dvd burned in premiere pro cc does not fill the screen. Desire a 4:3
aspect ratio
created by Peru Bob (https://forums.adobe.com/people/Peru+Bob) in Adobe
Media Encoder (AME) - View the full discussion
(https://forums.adobe.com/message/7264779#7264779)

In Premiere Pro, is it possible to change the project aspect ratio once started?

In Premiere Pro, is it possible to change the project aspect ratio once started?

On a side note, 'projects' do not have as aspect ratio, sequences and footage do. And a project can contain any number of sequences or footage.

How to obtain proper aspect ratios for sequences in Premiere Pro?

I'm posting it here, because I use AE SDK for the effect.
I've got a RED sequence in Premiere that is 2048x1152. The footage is 2816x2304 anamorphic 2:1. The sequence preview is 1920x1080, like any Premiere preset over HD. I can't seem to get the proper size and aspect ratio to resize the UI controls and position the effect.
Normally I'd use this:
scale_x *= (PF_FpShort) in_data->pixel_aspect_ratio.den / (PF_FpShort) in_data->pixel_aspect_ratio.num;
scale_x *= (PF_FpShort) in_data->downsample_x.num / (PF_FpShort) in_data->downsample_x.den;
scale_y *= (PF_FpShort) in_data->downsample_y.num / (PF_FpShort) in_data->downsample_y.den;
But in this case it doesn't seem to work. Also standard procedures for UI resizing from SDK examples fail.
How can I obtain the proper aspect ratio and sizes?
Thanks in advance.

Premiere Pro is not well designed for this type of collaborative work flow. That's not to say something can't be made to work, just that it may not be as seamless as you'd like.
For starters, there's no way to really 'merge' the changes made by two different people working on the same project, so one of the primary rules you'll have to implement is that only one person at a time can work on any given project, and you'll have to be in constant communication as to who is working on which project, with person A leaving it alone until person B gives the go-ahead. At which point B will have to leave it alone until A gives the go-ahead. If you don't do this, your changes will overwrite each other and you'll get nowhere.
Second thing to be aware of is that clip markers are stored with the media, so while sending only the project file back and forth is fine for most things, it won't work with clip markers. You'll also need to transfer whatever media files have the markers. Given the relatively large size of media compared to project files, it may be best to simply forgo using clip makers.
If the hard drive setup is not identical on both machines, you may have to relink the media with every swap of project files.

Premiere Pro CC 'single frame' export squashes aspect ratio

Hi,
When I used the single frame export button to export a single frame from my timeline, the 16:9 ratio gets squashed in.
The image has a play button graphic on it and that should be round but it comes out oval.
When I import the image into Photoshop, it looks normal 16:9 but when I save it as a jpeg and open it up, it's still squashed.
I would be so grateful if someone could help me sort this out.
Cardamada

Thanks Jim for your quick reply. I am still wondeirng if there is a better way. The footage I am editing is 1920 x 1080 DSLR footage. Anytime I export a frame from Fnal Cut Pro it does it fine. I moved over to Adobe recently and I'm suprised that it's not working. I wondered whether there was a way to change my export settings so that it exports with square pixels from Premiere Pro. Meanwhile I will try to follow your instructions re square pixles and photoshop.

Aspect Ratio change in Adobe Premiere Pro

Hello all, I am completely new to APP editing so this might seem like a very obvious question. My source footage is in 16:9 and it seems like the timeline image is in 4:3 and therefore a part of the image is cut off. I changed the Pixel Aspect Ratio in Sequence Settings to 16:9 but the image is still cut off in the Program window. I am working on a Macbook Pro and have APR CC 2014. Thank you in advance for you help!

Hello Richard, thank you for your response. I just tried that, changing the Pixel Aspect Ratio in Sequence Settings to 16:9. The screen size changed but the image itself is still cropped. Is there something else I need to modify in the Settings window of the new sequence in order to have the image fit the screen? Thank you so much!

Premiere Pro CC Video Aspect Ratio is changed on render

We have a really weird problem in Premiere. Once you add a few filters and change the scale of a clip and then render it, it changes the aspect ratio. The aspect ratio has no been changed in scale. Any ideas?

I'm having a problem that sounds very similar, but I don't understand how you fixed it. Can you explain further please? My video looks fine, but when I render there is a small black bar on the right side (but only on the parts that needed rendering), so I'm assuming that must be changing the aspect ratio (the video jumps to the left a little). I exported the footage without rendering it, but it obviously does that for you upon export and it's on my final video. I would really appreciate some help if you know how to fix this! Thanks much!!
-Amber

Aspect ratio problem with consumer camera and Premiere Elements 11

Hello everyone - I'm Steve. I'm new here. I do still photography on a pro level, digital and analog, but I am an absolute dummy with video...but then, I don't want to do much, just rudimentarily cut a few family videos, upload them, etc.
However, I can't get Premiere Elements 11 to output my self-shot clips in a correct aspect ratio.
My camera is a consumer-model Canon Legria FS200. I shoot video in a resolution the camera calls XP. The camera says they are 16:9, the camera monitor shows them as 16:9, and when I use the software (called Pixela Image Mixer) that came with the camera to import the clips to disk, I get mpg files that Windows (7) Explorer says are 720x576 pixel, and that VLC player correctly displays as wide-screen 16:9 without me having to tweak its display settings.
However, the moment I import them into Premiere Elements, they appear horizontally squeezed, and I can't seem to output them any other way, with or even without editing them in Premiere.
I tried to use the recipe given here: https://forums.adobe.com/message/5987538#5987538 , (replacing only NTSC with PAL because I'm in Germany), namely, setting the project preset set manually for PAL/Hard Disk etc/ Widescreen 48kHz and check force selected program settings. But no matter, Premiere displays the video in horizontally compressed form, with large black bars to the right and to the left.
On the export side, setting the output to PAL DVD Widescreen and setting the Pixel Aspect Ratio in the output settings to Widescreen does not help, either. Neither can I force VLC player manually to display the correct aspect ratio. BTW, audio is perfect all along.
This is about as far as I can see myself getting without help. Has anyone any idea?
Thanks a lot in advance,
Steve, from Germany

Steve
I see that you are now in the Adobe Premiere Elements Forum with your problem already solved.
I did not see any Why for what you encountered, so I thought I would give you my take on this.
Your Canon FS200 gives video with MPEG2 video compression with a .mod file extension. That .mod file extension can be found in use with some Canon as well as JVC cameras. The .mod file history with Premiere Elements (any version) is problematic. In some instances, the user needs to rename the file extension from .mod to .mpg before it can be imported, but not always. But, the .mod widescreen comes packaged with the aspect ratio dilemma, presenting as 4:3 rather than 16:9. The classical argument is whether Premiere Elements does not recognize a .mod file's 16:9 flag or whether the 16:9 flag got lost.
There used to be a utility contributed by an user to handle the file extension and/or aspect ratio issues. Now, the general fix is to import the file into Premiere Elements (in your case 11) with Add Media/Files and Folder/Project Assets. And in Project Assets, you right click the file, select Interpret Footage, and go to the Pixel Aspect Ratio section of the Interpret Footage dialog where you
(a) dot the Conform To:
and
(a) set the Contorm To: field to (in your case) D1/DV PAL Widescreen 16:9 (1.4587)
Once you are in the program and have the file on the Timeline, if any black edges, you can click the monitor to bring up the image's bounding box. Then drag on a bounding box handle to scale the image just to the point where the black edges are gone.
If you ever need the Adobe Premiere Elements Forum, maybe bookmark this link
Premiere Elements
You should expect to have this issue with any .mod widescreen file that you obtain from your Canon FS200 camera.
ATR
Add On...If you are depending on the program to set the correct project preset, you may want to check into what it is setting based on the properties the first file you drag to the Timeline. A manual setting of the project preset may be in order. Please see
ATR Premiere Elements Troubleshooting: PE11: Accuracy of Automatic Project Preset (New Project Dialog) Setting

Still image pixel aspect ratio wrong in exported video (but correct in Premiere renders)

I've saved a targa still image from my footage and added it to the bin. It's properties show as follows:
Image Size: 1440 x 1080
Pixel Aspect Ratio: 1.3333
This correctly matches my sequence settings as I'm working with 1080p widescreen footage.
The image appears as expected in the Program window both before and after rendering previews. However, once I export my sequence as a video file, the still image is squashed (displaying incorrectly):
A work around would be to stretch out the still to a width of 1920 in Premiere so that the export displays it back at its normal aspect ratio - which works - but I don't understand why I should have to do this.
The other solution I found was to go to the bin and 'Modify > Interpret Footage' and although "Use Pixel Aspect Ratio from File" already shows the correct settings, to actively reset it (to the same pixel aspect ratio) with the 'Conform to' option:
This works too.
Surely a bug?
(using Premiere Pro CC)

Thanks for the quick reply. But then why does the still's properties (in my bin) show the pixel aspect ratio as 1.3333 (not square pixels, 1.0) and should it not appear incorrectly in both the preview renders and the exported video ? This seems inconsitent to me.

Premiere exports in incorrect pixel aspect ratio

My Panasonic camera shoots quicktime .mov JPEG videos in a 720X408 px resolution. I am having a very hard time editing them in Premiere, because I cannot get it to export them in a correct pixel aspect ratio.
Maybe you can figure out what I'm doing wrong. Here's what I do.
First, when opening a new project, the closest frame size I can choose is 720x480. So I choose that. I import the .mov file into it, and put it on the time line. At that point it looks like this:
http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/812/premierewindowoc9.jpg
Correct aspect ratio and no deformation.
When I try to export it as a .mov file, I do the following: I click on settings (in the file save dialogue), and go to video settings. I can choose any pixel aspect ratio, it all produces the same results, but for example, let's say, DVCPRO (1.5) (that's the closest to the size I need).
I can manually set my frame size to be 720x408 px, assuming that now the frame size will be exactly the same size as my video and no deformation will occur.
However, the result I get is this:
http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/6730/exportedmoviehl5.jpg
I've drawn arrows on that to make it clearer. So, I have a movie that's 720x408px. Premiere exports a frame sized 720x408, but then for some strange reason shrinks the actual video down to 483x480!!??!! Leaving completely unnecessary black bars on the sides.
Why does it do this?
When I export it with frame size 720x480, it doesn't add black lines on top and bottom as you'd expect. It does exactly the same thing you see in the image above.
I have tried many other combinations too. I have tried exporting it as every other available pixel aspect ratio, also as an avi file, nothing makes any difference. It always shrinks the original video in width, and adds black bars to the left and right.
What am I doing wrong??

Tina,
Lets see if we can get kitty onto YouTube.
There are four issues, that you will need to overcome:
1.) Project Preset to begin. Stanley lists the possible choices in post #8, based on the specs of your camera. You will have to determine which of these you used to record the files. These are *probably* set in your cameras menu area, and if you have not changed them, are probably still set. That will get you started in the right direction - but wait, theres more...
2.) It seems that your camera uses Motion-JPG as the encoder to create these files. There are at least two good Motion-JPG CODECs available, Lead and Morgan. Plus, your camera may well have come with its own Motion-JPG CODEC. The CODEC is what allows your camera to encode/compress the video data, and also what allows programs like Premiere to decode that data. Did your camera come with a CD/DVD with software on it? If so, the installation of that software *should* install any proprietary CODECs to your system. Now, if this was the case (or soon will be the case, when you locate that CD/DVD), Premiere *possibly* will be able to use that CODEC to handle the footage from your camera. If it does not, then it is *possibly* only a matter of purchasing, downloading and installing one of the two mentioned Motion-JPG CODECs. Both are relatively inexpensive, and Premiere *usually* can work with either, though your exact footage might not permit this. This is usually because a camera mfgr. chose to do their own thing. Thats why any disc that came with the camera is the first place to start.
3.) Now, you are in Premiere, have the proper CODEC installed on your system, and have Imported the footage into a Project with the proper Presets. If all is working, and I hope that it is, you just edit your footage.
4.) You have been working with Presets established based on your footage. That is likely not exactly what you will want to upload to YouTube. This is where Export comes into play. Unfortunately, YouTube seems to change the specs. weekly. About the time that someone publishes fool-proof details and settings for YouTube, they (YouTube) change everything. The best advice is to search as many fora, as you can for Export Settings for YouTube. Look at the dates for all articles. You really will only care about the most recent - very recent.
Going back up the list, there is another possibility. That would be to use a 3rd party conversion program to convert your footage to a DV-AVI Type II file. Often, with the proper CODEC installed, Premiere can do this internally, though not always, and even when it works, there can be problems. I use DigitalMedia Converter (Deskshare) a shareware program for most of my conversions. There are many freeware, and shareware, conversion programs available. Many get mentioned in this forum. Many get glowing reviews. Some are easier to use, than others.
Some balk at the thought of owning Premiere Pro and then having to use some 3rd party software to get their footage into a robust NLE, that they paid good money for. The fact is that Premiere Pro was designed to work primarily with DV-AVI Type II files, from mini tape cameras - the point made by several. That does not mean that it cannot work with other file types. It does, though not always without problems. Sometimes just passing the material through a conversion program will clear up all problems and no one is the wiser. I often use Premiere Elements, Pros little bitty brother, to convert some file formats, because it is more tolerant of many of these, than is Pro.
Good luck, and sorry that I do not have a current suggestion for Export to YouTube. Since it is a hot distribution medium, you should have no problem finding the correct settings for today - be sure to check the date of all articles, as the specs change all the time and in a heartbeat.
Let us know if you have any more questions. For "how things are done in Premiere," I recommend the Premiere-wikia: http://premierepro.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
for tutorials. Most that you could want to do will be there someplace. The current YouTube setting might be an exception, just because every time the Wikia gets updated, that info is out of date.
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