Mixing 4:3 with 16:9 clips together. How to do it?

[Francois Dormoy]

I want to mount, uisng Final Cut Pro, a film from old clips taken with my old Sony VX2000 camera. But the problem is that I want to put in the same timelime clips taken with 4:3 format and clips taken with 16:9 format (I presume it is a false 16:9).
I was thinking of using a mask with 2 horizontal black strip on top and at the bottom of the 4:3 clips and get the 16:9 clips with it as well.
Is there an automatic way of doing it in FCP?

[Boyd Ostroff]

Yes, FCP will automatically do this. I'm not clear on what your final format will be - 16:9 or 4:3 however.

If you want 4:3, then just create a 4:3 sequence and drop your 16:9 clips into it. They will automatically be letterboxed with black bars above and below to fit.

If you want 16:9, then just create a 16:9 sequence and drop your 4:3 clips into it. They will automatically be pillarboxed with black bars to the left and right.

In either case, if you don't like the effect, enable image+wireframe from the dropdown menu in the viewer. Now set the view to 25% so you can see the gray area around the image. You can "grab" one of the dots at the corners of the image and drag outwards to zoom the picture out until it fills the frame and the black bars go away. Of course it will depend on the quality of the original footage as to whether this looks good.

[Christopher Drews]

This issue has been discussed in-depth here: http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/non-line...-material.html

-C

[Francois Dormoy]

Thanks for these feed back.

[Theodore McNeil]

I would also suggest reading this article from Ken Stone dot Net. It is the best article/tutorial I have ever read on the subject. Faking It : Making 4:3 footage work in 16:9 projects.