[William Holland]

So, here's my issue. I'm normally a Final Cut User, but I'm currently editing a project in Premiere. I have a Canon XH A1, and was successfully able to capture using the HDV codec at 1440 x 1080.

I have the project completely edited, and now I am ready to export. For the particular format I am working in, i always exported a final cut quicktime file first. Then, I would open the Final Cut Quicktime in Quicktime pro and export it with letterbox to preserve the aspect ratio. This second export would not occur in final cut, and would be set up in H.264 with a size of 720 x 480 (letterbox preserving the HD aspect ratio).

Now, in premiere I wanted to develop a similar workflow, but it does not really seem doable. Basically, I want to do two things:

1. export a hi-res HDV file that I can archive.

2. create a SD clip that my client can upload to their website.

One of the main problems I am having is that when I export at 1440 x 1080 HD, I am getting a square image. When I export (using quicktime codecs) the only way I have found to maintain the proper HDV aspect ratio is using Square pixels manually sized to 1280 by 1080. When I set the size of the clip itself to 720 x 480, i get letterboxing, and the image does not looking distorted. However, it looks a lot like it is in 1.33:1 and not 16:9.

Can anyone shed some light on this for me? I would appreciate insight into a different way to work in premiere. Perhaps codec and format suggestions? It's so different from Final Cut, and Final Cut does this all with great ease and does it so well. Any help would be appreciated.