How do I crop 4:3 footage to 16:9?
 

Hi there

My camera only shoots in 4:3 - I want to crop the footage to 16:9.

How do you do it in FCP 4.5?

Thanks
Paul

You could either make a 720x480 letterbox matte image in Photoshop w/ 16:9 dimensions for the center frame, or once you've got your composition finished just put it in a 16:9 timeline and rescale it to fit AND have proper perspective (chopping off the top & bottom).

The two results get you different forms of 16:9 (letterboxed 4:3, also 'realish' 16:9). I'm not really sure which you are going for.

HI!

Thanks for the quick reply

I want to crop the top and bottom of the 4:3 image so it fills the entire 16:9 frame.

I want the aspect ratio to be 1.78:1

I just can't figure out how to rescale it to that in FCP

Do you want the frame to be anamorphic or letterboxed?

Anamorphic

Drop the footage in an anamorphic timeline and enlarge the frame size 33%. This will give you the proper width to fill the screen and cut off the top and bottom of your footage. It also allows you to frame the shot up and down if needed.

Another simple way to get this would be to go to the distort property on the motion tab in the viewer. change the y-coodinate of the top left and right corners to -320 and change the y-coordinate of the bottom left and right corners to 320. Then change the clip's property to anamorphic.

Different routes to the same destination. But try each, when I tried this awhile ago I found a quality difference under FCP 3. I think it involves the scaling process and/or the order in which the actions are performed.

Thanks for the replies

Whats the easiest way to enlarge the frame by 33%?

Thanks

Double click the clip in the timeline to open it in the viewer then select the Motion tab and set the Scale to 133.