Fixing Vertically Stretched Video
 

I am wondering if any FCP users know of any way to fix vertically stretched video easily. The video was shot 16x9 and put to tape 4x3 without letterboxing. So the video is stretched vertically. Dont ask me why???? It is a very frustrating thing that I am trying to put an end to but for now I have to deal with it and make this footage usable. My current method is to distort the aspect ratio to about -13 or -14 and then zoom in to make it fill the screen. The Avid editors here have a resize filter that allows them to enlarge only the horizontal, which keeps it full screen and looks better than my FCP method. I have looked through the filters and motion tab and havent been able to come up with anything. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you!!

hopefully you are editing in 16x9 if that's what you really shot in. Just use the presets provided in FCP for capturing AND export until you learn the basics. Upon export there is a checkbox if you want to add letterbox or not. Just export a couple test clips and see how it looks.

JS

Thanks John but I edit spots for various live events. Our spots are 4x3. The footage we use for these spots comes from previous events that were shot by different cam crews. Sometimes the venue provides the footage, sometimes we have our own crews that actually follow our guidelines. So we have all this footage that is shot with different standards and guidelines. Some good, some not so good. For some reason they like to stretch our footage???? But I am pretty well versed in FCP. I am just looking to find a way to easily convert this footage like the Avid editors here do. Believe me, I am really frustrated with how some of this footage comes back to us. But I am the new guy and have to just deal with it for now. Eventually everything will be 16x9 and we will edit 16x9 but til then this is what we get. Thanks again.

- Import the "offending" clip into FCP.
- In the browser, right click on the clip and select Item Property => Format from the contextual menu
- Ensure the Anamorphic item has a check next to it, if not, click to add one
- Open a new 4:3 sequence and add the clip to it. The clip should now be letterboxed in the 4:3 sequence. If you need to do a pan and scan instead of letterboxing, use the Scale item in the motion tab to increase scale.

Thanks everyone!! I never thought to just click on anamorphic. So it worked great for me but I have 1 difference to how u said it should work. Luckily it is how I want it anyway!! So it displays as anamorphic in the viewer but when I drop it in my timeline it displays enlarged to fill the frame of the canvas. You said that it would display letterboxed?? Like I said this is how I need it anyway so it saves me the step of changing the size!! By the way my sequence settings are AJA Kona LS: 525 29.97 DVCPro50 Thanks again!!!

I just tried this method on a different FCP system and the video displayed letterboxed in the canvas like u said. Can you think of what setting would determine this?? My system is still FCP 5 and the other is FCP6. That prob shouldnt have anything to do with it though? Either way my question is answered, just wondering why the 2 systems act differently. Thanks!!

Not sure if this is what is causing your issue, but the Anamorphic flag MUST be checked BEFORE placing the clip in the timeline. Once it's in the timeline, checking the Anamorphic flag does nothing. One of the idiosyncrasies of FCP...

lol this post has also helped me out! Shows how much I konw ; )

JS

After you create the anamorphic sequence and place your anamorphic 16:9 clip in it, it will fill the entire frame as it should. Then you need to create a new sequence with 4:3 aspect ratio and put the anamorphic sequence (not clip) in the 4:3 sequence. That will give you the letter boxed 4:3 clip you want.

JCP: Actually, what I said works just fine in most cases. Different versions of FCP handle "off sized" media differently. Some stretch to fill, some resize to what it THINKS you want while others just bring it in at 100% scale. A maddening issue with FCP, especially if you move between multiple versions.