Hi all. . .

I'm trying to download some JPGs out of my music video footage.

I followed the FCP directions to the letter, but when I view the exported stills, they are NOT in a 16x9 format. They appear to have been scrunched into a 4x3 format.

Is there a way to get real 16x9 JPGs out of FCP?

Thanks much.

Stephen Pruitt

Stephen, it's all working correctly: I assume you're getting 720x480 pixels exporting stills from DV-NTSC, but the picture content looks tall and thin?

This is correct, but the pixels are not intended to be square. To view them "normally" you'll need to stretch the picture wider in an image manipulation application of your choice (remembering NOT to preserve aspect ratio) to 864x480 pixels.

My math says:

480 x 16 / 9 = 853.33

So I always use 854 x 480 to scale 16:9 video for square pixels. I believe the 864 width assumes a 486 line image, which would not be the standard for DV (486 x 16 / 9 = 864).

But what are a few pixels between friends? :-)

So does my mathematics, Boyd, but I was quoting pixel dimensions from the DVD Studio Pro manual.

A bit off topic, but:

I believe if you use those EXACT sizes, then DVDSP won't try and resize the still images you might use for widescreen NTSC menus, as it assumes you know what you're doing.

When I do a widescreen DVD, I set the Live Type and Motion elements to 853X480. I'm close to Boyd's numbers except I round to the nearest hole number. ;-)

-gb-

Actually, gentlemen, I'm shooting in HD. . . whatever by 720. . .

I don't know if that makes a difference or not (I assume the ratio would be the same). Unfortunately, I don't have a still editing program that will allow me to stretch the image. (The only one I have is iPhoto, and that does not appear to allow me to do image stretches. Bummer.)

I can't believe that this simple task could be so hard!

It makes no sense to me that it should be different when viewed on FCP as to when I grab a still and look at it, but that's the case.

Very strange.

Stephen

What kind of camera are you shooting with? I believe the HDV standards are 720x1280 (which should look OK with square pixels) and 1080x1440 (which will appear squashed). So I'm guessing that you're exporting a 1440x1080 anamorphic still. You could resize that to either 1920x1080 or 1440 x 809 and have the correct proportions.

You really should get some sort of image editing program, it's hard to get along without one. Photoshop Elements is inexpensive and will do this sort of thing plus much more. In fact, I still haven't found a reason to upgrade to the full version of photoshop myself.

http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshopelmac/

I'm sure there are also some decent shareware/freeware image editors out there as well. But you certainly need something more than just iPhoto.