Animating Resize Settings

You can animate the position of the crop box to pan and scan a 16:9 clip to a 4:3 format. Pan and scan is a technique widely used for resizing 16:9 clips to a 4:3 resolution when the area of interest in the shots is to one side of the 16:9 frame. You can follow the area of interest in the shot by animating the crop box along the X-axis.

You can also animate the size of the crop box and lock the output to the crop box. This animates the resolution of the clip, meaning that the second frame of the clip is different from the first. You can do this only in Batch.

To pan and scan a 16:9 clip to a 4:3 clip:

Access the Resize module for a 16:9 clip on the desktop, in Batch, or from soft effects if you are working on the timeline.
Make sure Regen is enabled to get dynamic visual feedback of the result clip in the viewport on the right. See Getting Dynamic Feedback in Result View.
From the Resolution Presets box, select the 4:3 resolution to which you want to resize the source.
From the Fit Method box, select Crop Edges.
Click the Source button next to the Clip label to make the crop box the same size as the source frame.
Depending on the source and destination resolutions, select a scan mode from the Scan Mode box. See Destination Settings.
Go to the first frame.
Make sure Autokey is enabled so you can create position keyframes for the crop box automatically.
Scrub through the clip to identify areas where the area of interest includes the left and right edges of the clip outside the crop box.
Animate the position of the crop box accordingly by dragging the crop box. Press Shift while dragging the crop box to constrain changes in position to the X-axis:
- If the area of interest changes suddenly following a splice between clips, add a keyframe for the X-position of the crop box at the last frame of the outgoing shot, and then add another keyframe at the first frame of the incoming shot.
- If the area of interest changes with camera movement, create a linear or hermite animation to change the X-position of the crop box gradually.
Depending on the source and destination resolutions, select a scan mode from the Scan Mode box. See Destination Settings.
Process the result.