Another question: QuickTime movies from Sony HDV footage
 

I've been using Compressor 2 to export QT movies in DV and HDV and I keep getting a 4:3, albeit stretched vertically, QT movie. It's clean, since the latest updates fixed the Compressor 2/Sony HDV problems. I looked at the settings and noticed everything is for square pixels, yet Sony HDV is non-square. How can I fix this and get either a letterboxed image or a true anamorphic QT movie?

Thanks,

Heath

Hmmm, I think I'm on to something. A QT movie and an HDV 1080i60 QT movie go square, but a 10 bit uncompressed 1080i60 is an anamorphic QT movie. More tests and I'll post the results!

BTW, I'm using an old movie that was captured via the Apple Intermediate Codec in iMovie HD and imported later into the latest FCP (5.0.4).

heath

That sounds about right. Quicktime doesn't honor anamorphic flags, only FCP does. 16:9 DV and 1080i HDV is anamorphic. By decompressing the movie from 1080i HDV to 1080i uncompressed you're scaling the frame from 1440x1080 (HDV) to 1920x1080 (Uncompressed).

DVCproHD is even more anamorphic: 1280x1080 for 1080i and 960x720 for 720p.

I ended up importing my 10 bit uncompressed file into a DV (720x480) sequence and making my DV QTs, down-converts, iPod movies and more. There's gotta be an easier way, though.

heath

Just duplicate the compressor preset you want to use and then set the "constrain to display aspect" to to 16x9 instead of "none."

Rename the new preset with the addendum "16x9" and you should be set!

Heath:

I had the same issues (and questions) and then realized that all I needed to do was force QT to keep the 16:9 HDV aspect ratio when I exported the file out of FCP.

I always test my QT files through the QT conversion option of export (Export > Using Quick Time Conversion). There, I set a custom 16:9 size--usually 480x270. For web delivery, if the file size of the resultant process is acceptable, I am finished. If it is too big, I export to Compressor and create a new file. I choose to bypass compressor when I can because it seems to take significantly longer than other compression engines.

This is basically what Tim was suggesting using "constrain to display aspect" in Compressor. However, you can do it directly in QT if you want--and do not need to utilize compressor's other features.

The whole non-square pixels for HDV versus square pixels for some other, higher-end HD cameras took me a while to figure out. It's something like a round peg fitting in a square hole.

Thanks, Jeff!

heath