Black side bars on Exported Video

[Spencer Garcia]

I rendered my video, and when watching it in QuickTime there are black bars on the sides even though there weren't when I was editing the footage. The footage is 640x480 so I assume it won't be high quality, but why does it look good when editing but not when I watch it in full screen? Are the black bars supposed to be there in the final export? 

[Sumeet Kumar Choubey · Accepted solution]

Hi Spencer Garcia,

Looking at the preview in the Export Settings panel, it seems like the media is not exported with the black bars on the sides. 640x480 media has a 4:3 aspect ratio, unlike 16:9 aspect ratio of 1920x1080 media. Your exported media is closer to a squarish frame compared to the traditional 16:9 media. When you watch 640x480 media on a 16:9 monitor in full screen, you will see the black bars on the sides as the squarish video (4:3) is supposed to fit in a rectangular preview screen (16:9). Hope this helps. Let us know if you have any questions.

Thanks,
Sumeet