Just
track down and install the latest version of the codec required by the misbehaving
video, as described at the beginning of this chapter, and try
again. If that doesn??™t help, there are some other fixes, as follows.
154 | Chapter 4: Working with Media
Change the aspect ratio. If all your videos seem squashed (too narrow) or
stretched out (too wide), you may have to correct your display??™s aspect
ratio setting. Open Windows Media Player, click the Now Playing button,
and select More Options. Choose the Devices tab, highlight Display
in the list, and then click Properties. Move the slider until the oval
looks like as close to a true circle as possible, and then click OK.
On the other hand, if only a single video clip has an incorrect aspect
ratio, it may??™ve been encoded that way. To fix the file, you??™ll have to
open the file in a video-editing program that can resize video frames.
Although the aforementioned Windows Media Encoder can crop
frames, it can??™t stretch or shrink video. To change the aspect ratio of a
video clip, use River Past Video Perspective (http://www.riverpast.com),
Open Video Converter (http://www.009soft.com), or a more advanced
video application like Adobe Premiere (http://www.abobe.com).
The hardest part is the math, but it??™s not that hard. Most video has a 4:3
aspect ratio, which means the width is four-thirds the height. (HD television
and some feature films typically have a 16:9 aspect ratio, while
wider ???anamorphic??? feature films have a 2.
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