16:9 help in FCP
 

Hello everyone, I was wondering if youd be able to help me out. Ive been working on a video for a while now in FCP, which was shot mostly on my GL2 in incamera 16:9 and has contributed stuff that is regular 4:3 and cropped. I can not however figure out how to just export the project file (for DVDSP) in a 16:9 format, so that there are no black bars. Im not sure if the only way to do this is just export 4:3 cropped and put it on DVD like that, or export it 16:9 and have the bars come up when it is then played on a television that is not 16:9. Any thoughts or help with this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time.

Alex B.

which version of fcp and dvd studio pro are you using?

In final cut, if i have edited a 16:9 movie, and my sequence is 16:9, I just do export, quicktime movie, and make sure 'use current setting' is checked, then import into dvd studio pro, making sure dvd studio pro is set to 16:9 in the encoding options (in 'preferences'), and the display mode of your menus and tracks are set to 16:9 (in the 'general' tab).

If your shooting in DV, then your project will be anamorphic, so when you export the quicktime movie and view it in quicktime, it will look 'squished'. But if you've set dvd studio to 16:9, it will encode it at the correct aspect ratio.


Hope that helps

Peter, thanks for your response,
I am using FCP5 and DVDSP4.
I am not sure if my sequence was 16:9 (if that was what you were referring to). Because anytime I export anything, no matter what the setting it exports in 4:3 letterboxed. Im not sure if that helps you to help me out, I just don't know what to do, whatever I export its 4:3, and Im not sure where I am going wrong. Any additional help would be great, thanks for your time.

Alex B.

Hmm, how odd. Any chance you can post what the the sequence settings are? (Up the top, click on sequence, and when the menu drops down, click on settings) and what format you shot in? hope i can help!

Peter, thanks for working with me and helping me out with this, I really appreciate it. My settings are as follows:

720x480 NTSC DV (3:2)
NTSC - CCIR 601 / DV .... (anamorphic 16:9 box is NOT checked)
Lower (Even)
29.97
quicktime settings are
DV/DVCPRO NTSC
quality 100%
and Im pretty sure that audio is irreveilent.

Anyways, thanks again for your continued help with this issue.

Alex B.

It sounds like a problem I had once before and this solution worked for me.

Select a clip from a sequence , Go to viewer -> motion tab -> distort -> and change the aspect ratio to zero. Then check anamorphic in the sequence settings.

Export using current settings and import into dvd studio.

Excuse me if I misunderstood your problem.

Jonathan,
That seemed to do exactly what I needed, thank you so much. I only have one question though. I have some footage that was imported in the project as 4:3 but was already letterboxed and I cant seem to get those clips to adhere to the 16:9 without cropping the sides, is there anything I can do about those? (BTW I did have other 4:3 footage that I had originally put the widescreen filter on, then when in the 16:9 sequence I simply deleted it and it worked out fine). Thanks again.

Alex B.

Glad that worked for you.

4:3 letterboxed is still in the 4:3 aspect ratio so you have to scale the 4:3 footage to fit in the 16:9 sequence.

At least that is how I have always dealt with 4:3 footage. I am sure there are plugins/programs out there that do a better job scaling the footage then fcp.

If you don't want to scale the 4:3 footage then you could always go back to a 4:3 timeline and just scale the 16:9 stuff to fit instead. However, I dont recommend this because the video will looked squished on a real 16:9 tv since the black bars are in the video.

Jonathan,
thanks again for your help, everything you explainded makes sense and is working for me, I did figure out how to resize it properly (I hope anyways), so everything should be good. Thanks again for taking the time to help me out, you saved my project!
Take care,
Alex B.