Cropping 4:3 down to 16:9?
 

Does anyone know how to crop 4:3 footage down to 16:9 on Final Cut Pro?

I'm going to try shooting a tiny short in 4:3 on my GL2 with the 16:9 guides and then crop it down, but I'm not sure how to do that in post.

Cheers. :)

Three ways of doing it. In a 4:3 timeline, double click on your footage, click on the motion tab, and adjust the crop bars. The other way, is using the widescreen matte under the effects tab. The third way, is to throw your footage into a 16:9 anamorphic timeline, double click on your footage, and in the motion tab, increase the scale to 133%.

What are the drawbacks and benefits of each way?

I think they all achieve the same results, moving the crop bars yourself might be the hardest way. My suggestion is to use the widescreen matte since you can make adjustments up or down depending on how the shot was framed.

If you use the anamorphic option (the third way which Chris describes), then your footage will be in the correct format for people with widescreen TV's if you burn a DVD. And an anamorphic DVD should also work correctly for people with 4:3 TV's. The DVD player will automatically provide the letterbox for 4:3 TV's if the DVD is correctly made.

I think that's the way I want to go for those reasons, Boyd. Is this also the way with the best video quality?

First day here and helped already!

Welcome Lyndon! I don't know that there's a lot of difference in terms of quality, because the image is only as good as what's recorded on tape. I think the easiest way to answer your question is to do a test.

That makes sense. I should've known.

Thanks for your help!

I did a test of this approach and was not quite prepared for what I saw. The 4:3 footage was distorted horizontally. A 133 magnification as suggested earlier didn't alter the distortion.

I set up an anamorphic project, then captured 4:3 footage directly from tape.

Can you provide a step by step process? I've never tried this before.