CS3 - Change magnification of Source/Program windows?

Question

I'm working in Premiere Pro CS3 and I've successfully imported some video.  I can change the size of the windows themselves (50%, fit, etc).  However, the image itself inside the windows continues to display at 100%.  This means that at the "fit" windowsize, I'm seeing the top left corner of the image only.
When I stop the video playback and click on the video itself, I see a set of scale controls over the image, which looks perfectly scaled to the window size.  But as soon as I engage playback, the video blows up to 100% size inside a small window, leaving me without a clear look at my full footage.
I'm a Photoshop person and I'm looking for the equivalent of the Zoom tool to get a larger or smaller view of the full video.  Is there a way to change this, or is my only option to open out the panels as large as possible to see the whole picture?
Thanks, I hope this makes sense.

Answer 1

MandyRose,
With a Project Preset of Desktop (Custom) set to 640 x 480 PAR = 1.0 (Square Pixels) and matching source footage, which the info in Project Panel verifies, this should not be happening. Going back to your Project Preset, can you check one more time that you have chosen Desktop, with the above specs. ? What you show is what one would get with a mismatch between the Project Preset and the source footage. That's why I'm bothering you with that one bit. I've thought that I had chosen properly, experienced similar, only to find that I had clicked one selection above, or below, or forgot to change my Frame Size in the dialog screen. In the Toolbar, you can go to Project>Project Settings and display the General settings chosen for the Project.
if I set my view to something larger than my screen can display (for example, 75% or 100%) it stretches and distorts the image within the size of the panel.
That other magnifications show only a portion of the source footage's Frame Size is correct. Depending on the size of the Program Monitor, one would have to scroll around higher magnifications, when they are chosen, instead of Fit. That it "stretches and distorts" is not.
I realize this just might be a limitation of Premiere that it always displays this way, but it just seems as though it should show me the full clip (reduced to fit the window) while I'm working with it.
PrPro's Program Monitor is an emulation, albeit a pretty good one. This is not normal behavior. That is why I'm looking for one setting that is not correct.
In the Timeline, Rt-click on the Clip, and check whether Scale to Frame is checked. If so, what happens if you uncheck it?
One other place to check would be the Effects Control Panel and twirl-down Motion, looking at Scale, to make sure that nothing has been applies there. Scale should be set to 100%.
That is all that I can think of at this moment. I'm sure that I am missing other places to check. If I can come up with any, I'll post them back with more questions.
Good luck,
Hunt