How to fix clips that look stretched or squashed
Upload the material and tell Vizard Agent which clips look wrong. Vizard Agent measures every file's real dimensions rather than trusting what the container claims, works out which were distorted by a bad crop, and re-fits them to the target shape without squeezing anyone thinner than they are.
What is the short version?
When footage shot in one shape is forced into another, people come out too thin or too wide. It is one of the few editing faults that everybody notices and almost nobody can name, and the fix is to re-fit rather than re-stretch.
- Go to Vizard Agent and upload all the photos and clips.
- Say which ones look stretched, or ask for them all to be checked.
- Say the shape everything should end up in.
What do you need before you start?
The original files rather than an export. Vizard Agent measures each file to find the distortion, and a version that has already been squeezed into the wrong shape has lost the information needed to put it back properly.
- The originals. Not a re-exported copy.
- The target shape. Vertical, square or wide.
- Which look wrong. Or ask for a full check.
- Phone photos. Including formats your computer will not open.
- The output. A film, or just the corrected clips.
What do you type into Vizard Agent?
Describe the symptom in plain words. "Everyone looks too thin" is a more useful brief than any technical term, because Vizard Agent measures the files to find the cause and the symptom is the thing you can actually observe.
Prompt
Variants worth knowing:
- Fit rather than fill. Bars instead of distortion, where nothing else works.
- Crop instead. Losing edges rather than squeezing the middle.
- Checked across the set. Because usually only some clips are affected.
What does Vizard Agent actually do?
Here is the order Vizard Agent worked in on a real family film where two clips had been distorted by a bad crop. The step nobody anticipates is the eleventh: half the photos were in a phone format it had to install a decoder for before it could see them at all.
- Loads the photo-story style and the effects.
- Downloads every photo and video, one file at a time from their links.
- Checks the working folder and builds the directory structure.
- Checks the free disk space before pulling everything down.
- Prepares the folders and checks the phone-photo converter.
- Looks for a way to open the phone-format photos when the first attempt fails.
- Measures the duration and dimensions of every video and checks the available media tools.
- Installs a decoder for the phone photo format into a temporary folder.
- Extracts frames from every video, converts the phone photos, reads their dates, and builds contact sheets in date order to review the whole set.
Steps 6 to 8 are the unglamorous reality of family footage. Photos from a phone often arrive in a format that ordinary tools will not open, and no amount of editing skill helps until something can actually read them.
What does the result look like?
A finished film in which nothing is distorted: the clips that were squeezed are re-fitted properly, the phone photos are readable and placed in date order, and the whole thing sits in the requested shape without anybody having been made narrower than they were on the day.
The corrected clips are the point rather than a side effect. Once the proportions are right the rest is ordinary editing, which is why this is worth fixing before any other work is done on the material.
When does this not work well?
Undoing a distortion properly needs the original file, and fitting one shape into another always costs something regardless. These are the trade-offs Vizard Agent has to make on your behalf rather than avoid, so it is worth knowing which one you prefer.
- Already-exported distortion is baked in. Re-fitting an exported file guesses.
- Something must give. Bars, a crop, or distortion — pick which.
- Crops lose the edges. Filling the frame means cutting information away.
- Mixed shapes need a decision. A set shot both ways cannot all fit cleanly.
- Low resolution shows. A small clip enlarged to fill a frame gets softer.
How do you fix a result that came back wrong?
Name the clip that still looks wrong. Vizard Agent keeps every file's measured dimensions, all the converted photos and the contact sheets, so one clip can be re-fitted differently without redoing the conversion work across the whole set.
- "That one is cropped too tight." Re-fitted with bars instead.
- "It still looks squashed." Re-measured against the original file.
- "A photo is missing." Located from the converted set and placed by date.
How does Vizard Agent compare to doing it yourself?
By hand this means noticing that two clips look odd, working out why, and then discovering that half your photos will not open on the machine you are editing on. The format problem alone stops most family projects.
| By hand | Vizard Agent | |
|---|---|---|
| Spotting distortion | Notice it, or do not | Every file's dimensions measured |
| The cause | Guess at the settings | Read from the file itself |
| Phone photos | Convert them somewhere else | A decoder installed and used |
| Ordering | Sort by filename | Read from the photos' own dates |
Common questions
Why do my clips look stretched? Usually a crop that forced one shape into another. Vizard Agent measures each file to confirm it.
Can it fix an already-exported video? Partly. Vizard Agent can re-fit it, but the original always gives a better result.
Will I lose parts of the frame? Only if you choose a crop. Vizard Agent can fit with bars instead.
What about photos my computer will not open? Vizard Agent installs a decoder for the phone format rather than skipping them.
Can it check every file? Yes. Vizard Agent measures the whole set rather than only the clips you flagged yourself.
Why not just stretch everything to fit? Because that is the fault you are trying to fix. Something has to give — bars, a crop, or distortion — and distortion is the one option a viewer always notices even when they cannot say why.
Can it order the photos by date? Yes. Vizard Agent reads the dates off the files rather than sorting by filename.
Does this work with mixed shapes? Yes, though Vizard Agent needs a decision about which shape wins if the set was shot both ways.
Can I get just the corrected clips? Yes. The film is optional; the correction is a deliverable on its own.
Should I fix this before or after editing? Before, always. Vizard Agent measures and corrects the files first, because every later decision about framing and cropping is made against whatever shape the clips are in when the edit starts.
How do I avoid this next time? Shoot in the shape you intend to publish in. Vizard Agent can re-fit almost anything afterwards, but a clip filmed in the target orientation never has to choose between bars, a crop and distortion at all.
Does Vizard Agent check the result? Yes. It reviews the re-fitted clips before building anything from them.