Exporting from FCP5 to iDVD
 

When I export an HDV film from FCP5 and import it into iDVD, it does not letterbox when played back on anything but a 16:9 video screen. On anything else, both TV and on a computer, the image is 4:3 "squished."

This seems to happen when I mix the HDV footage with 4:3 DV footage. When I make iDVDs with 100% HDV footage, the result are letterboxed on 4:3 screens and widescreen on 16:9 screens.

Is there something I'm missing?

(I'm a filmmaker, not a DVD-maker. I use iDVD, because I just want to put my work onto DVD the most efficient way possible.)

Here are some folks that have already figured this out:

http://capital2.capital.edu/admin-st...idescreen.html
http://www.atpm.com/11.06/howto-idvd.shtml

It does not seem that the above links have fixes for DVDs of HDV footage.

Any ideas anyone?

I haven't used iDVD, but I think the problem has to do with making an anamorphic vs standard DVD. With an anamorphic DVD there's a flag set that tells the DVD player to check what kind of screen it's connected to. On your DVD player there's a menu item where you can pick a 4:3 or 16:9 screen and 4:3 is generally the default. So if the DVD is anamorphic and your player is connected to a 4:3 screen then the player itself provides a letterbox. If the player is connected to a 16:9 screen then the footage is passed directly to the monitor which "unsquashes" it.

So you can't mix 4:3 and 16:9 native footage in the same sequence. If the 16:9 is anamorphic then it will treat the 4:3 like it's also anamorphic. If you want the 16:9 to be letterboxed regardless, then create a 4:3 sequence in FCP and drop it in. That will force a letterbox which will require a render.

Alternately, if you want the 4:3 footage to be "pillarboxed" on a 16:9 screen then drop it into a 16:9 sequence and it will force the same. But if you don't do either of these things then something is going to look wrong when mixing 4:3 and 16:9 in the same sequence...