I have some old HDV footage (1440 x 1080, 25p) I want to export as 1920 x 1080, 25p without black bars on the top and bottom.

I remember HDV footage playing back as full HD without bars back in the days of FCP 7 when you'd tick 'anamorphic' and something magical would happen.

Anyone know how to do this in FCP X?

Hi,

Not a Mac user - Premiere on PC - but in any case, HDV footage in a 1080 project or export should never have letterboxing - the vertical resolution of 1080 lines is the same. You might get "pillarboxing" which is bars on the sides, since 1440x1080 comes out to 4:3 if the software does not respect the 1.333 Pixel Aspect Ratio. Adobe does this automatically, so one can simply put HDV footage into a 1920x1080 Sequence, or export as 1920x1080, and it always looks fine, full screen. Can't believe that FCPX would not also do this automatically.

Have you tried it?

Thanks

FCPX does do this automatically unless the footage has been altered in some way. HDV is natural 16:9 and FCPX will recognize it and import it correctly. 720 will be converted to 1080 when brought into a 1080 timeline.

Sorry, my bad, it was 720 x 576 anamorphic... I didn't even consider that the Z1 not only shot HDV...

If you look down a way in your inspector display after you highlight any storyline asset, you'll find a setting for Spacial Conform. You can set an asset to Fit, Fill, or simply use the spacial flag it arrived with.

This can set up imported assets fill out a raster that's not the same as your storyline.

Alternatively, you can cut and paste an entire storyline into a NEW project that you're set up to have the raster that you want.

X gives you a lot of flexibility in this area.

Good luck.