16:9 footage, 9:16 canvas & adjustment clips

Even though we almost always shoot 16:9, I don't think we can disregard the need for video in portrait aspect ratio. However Davinci is not making it easy for me to use 16:9 footage on a 9:16 timeline.

My usual workflow would be to finish the main cut and then duplicate the timeline to edit it into short reels. However converting a duplicated timeline from 16:9 to 9:16 will always result in the clips themselves being cropped or scaled in one of the four methods below. The only way to revert the clip's aspect ratio is drag a new instance of the clip from you media pool on the timeline (in other words, make a 6:19 edit from scratch)

I would work with adjustment clips + zoom & position keyframes move around and pump out several shorts in a short (lol) amount of time. However since the 16:9 clips now have a portrait crop, using adjustment clips only results in black bars.

From Timeline Settings > 'Mismatched resolution' I'm clearly missing the option 'No crop, no resize'. I Can't really understand why anyone would prefer to crop footage and give up any flexibility anyway.

[*] Center crop no resizing - 16:9 footage is put in a cropped 9:16 clip
[*] Scale fullframe with crop - 16:9 footage is put in a cropped 9:16 clip but scaled to fit vertically
[*] Scale entire image to fit - Full 16:9 video is horizontally scaled to a 9:16 (about 4x reduction)
[*] Stretch frame to all corners - Lol who is even using this

There is no simple way to have clips that simply 'float above the canvas in their own aspect ratio'.
Surely you can animate the individual clips but adjustment layers are much faster than nesting and allow pan or zoom over multiple clips. Note that compound clips will maintain the existing crop so can't be used as groups.

Am I completely missing something? I found similar cases on the forum / reddit but it was always dismissed as 'that's just the way it is'

I think in v19 this is working better now - but i can't test right now.

In 18.6.6 create a new timeline with custom settings:
Format:
1920x1920
Mismatched Resolution:
Scale entire image to fit

format.jpg (57.65 KiB) Viewed 8424 times

Output:
1080x1920
Mismatched Resolution:
Scale full frame with crop

output.jpg (49.52 KiB) Viewed 8424 times

Then you can drag in your original timeline (1920x1080) and zoom, pan & scan.

Hi Christoph,
These were indeed the things I've tried (both v18.6 and v19) and unfortunately

"Scale entire image to fit" will fit the full 3840x2160 video onto a 1080x1920 canvas with black border on top and bottom. However the clip is now 1080x1920 which means you lost a ton of information.

"Scale full frame with crop" - You can still zoom & positioning on the videoclip itself which moves the video inside of a masked 1080x1920 area. However utilizing an adjustment clip on top won't move the video inside the mask but instead the clip itself which still remains a crop of 1080x1920.

Copy / Pasting all elements from a 16:9 timeline onto a 9:16 timeline also doesn't work. In this case Davinci converts every clip to the Mismatched resolution setting.

Only thing that seems to overrule this is to drag a clip from the media pool to the timeline. So it seems that the software knows how to work with clips that are different than the timeline dimensions.

I think in v19 this is working better now - but i can't test right now.

In 18.6.6 create a new timeline with custom settings:
Scale entire image to fit

Output:
1080x1920
Mismatched Resolution:
Scale full frame with crop
Then you can drag in your original timeline (1920x1080) and zoom, pan & scan.

Sorry, for some reason I assumed you had an HD timeline....
Then just use 3840x3840 instead of 1920x1920 in the format settings.

Have you tried duplicating your 16x9 timeline, and change the output scaling to 1215x2160 full frame with crop (assuming the timeline resolution is 3840x2160), either in project settings or even better right clicking the timeline and changing the timeline settings there? Then repositioning with edit sizing, not adjustment layers?

Sorry, for some reason I assumed you had an HD timeline....
Then just use 3840x3840 instead of 1920x1920 in the format settings.

I do have an HD timeline but the clip and originals are 4K. However your idea of starting off with a square format sounds promising. Will do some testing, thanks for thinking with me!

Have you tried duplicating your 16x9 timeline, and change the output scaling to 1215x2160 full frame with crop (assuming the timeline resolution is 3840x2160), either in project settings or even better right clicking the timeline and changing the timeline settings there? Then repositioning with edit sizing, not adjustment layers?

Positioning on the clip themselve are usually a no-go since especially with shorts & reels, often the pauses and 'uhms' are cut out, almost DJ'ing quotes and parts of the video. Also I have color coded adjustment layers for left, right, punch zooms etc. that are constantly reused. It doesn't seem to work here but usually this method really speeds up my edits.

I will defnitely check if I can adjust the output scaling with a crop as that would solve most issues.
Thanks for the ideas and help!