exporting widescreen movies for youtube
 

I shoot my videos in anamorphic widescreen. I notice some videos on youtube appear widescreen (ie letterboxed) but i can't for the life of me export a .mov or .mpg4 that appears widescreen. I have tried numerous settings, and can get my .flv videos to appear in widescreen format on blip.tv.

Can someone please tell me the process for exporting widescreen videos in quicktime format?

If I had to guess, I'd say they were rendered originally in 4:3 letterbox inside the editing program, and the final letterboxed video then converted for youtube. At least that's how I'd go about it.

Martin

yes, I suppose that is one way of doing it. But I like saving my work to minidv tape, and mastering a 4:3 copy of widescreen footage seems a bit of a waste.

I'm wondering if there are any settings I can do, so I can have the letterbox effect of 16:9 footage in a 4:3 frame, but exported from a 16:9 project?

What are you exporting your videos out of? I never export 4x3 videos, and my youtube posts always look fine. (letterboxed)

Tell us what program you're using, and perhaps we can help with settings.

Im using Final Cut Pro 5.1

Well, I'm a Premier Pro CS3 guy. The workflow I'd use is, import and edit raw footage in 16:9, export finished cut as 16:9 AVI file, import said AVI file into a new 4:3 project, render as 4:3 letterbox AVI, then move to youtube.

BTW, most of my work's in 16:9. I only letterbox when I don't know exactly what the playback device will be. 4:3 letterboxed is the lowest common denominator in the US. YMMV.

Martin

thanks Martin

there has to be an easier way than doing two versions. My vids look great on blip.tv as 16:9 flv files, but youtube gets the eyeballs..and there my vids look crap

the solution could well be youtube going widescreen, as everything else is going, tv, cameras

Well, technically it isn't two versions. All the hard work (editing, color correcting, etc) is in the native 16:9 version. You just dump the finished product to a 4:3 project and render it down.

Martin