Avid Liquid Widescreen Help
 

Hi Folks,
I'm somewhat new to the forum, so please accept my apology in advance if this question is not in the correct category.

I'm editing a feature film using Avid Liquid. I desire the final product to be in a letterboxed 2.35:1 aspect ratio. My camera is a native 4:3, so i put guides over my LCD during filming. Now in post my dilemma is this; how do i obtain my desired look? Do I crop it? Apply some sort of widescreen matte?

FYI: The widescreen matte is in reference to an option that comes with Final Cut where you can simply specify your aspect ratio, and plop the matte on your timeline. I'm not sure how I can do the same in Avid...can anyone help?

Welcome Mike. This will be/has been moved to the Avid Family forum.

2.35:1 is an interesting proposition as the only workflows I know of in Liquid are 4:3 and 16:9 ("standard" widescreen). When the files are exported out of the editor, it will have a flag that tells the codec to play it in either of those modes. You could edit a 2.35 look in a 16:9 line, but would have the bars in edit. And when you author it to DVD, it will take a little work in an authoring program to get it to 2.35:1 (Liquid will not do it and neither will the one I use.)

Now if you meant 16:9, capture your 4:3 video. Then create a new sequence in as a DV 16:9 sequence. Drop the video (which ever method you use for editing to the timeline) in the sequence's timeline. Then use a 2D (GPU or CPU) effect to resize the video to match what you want. Right click on that effect and Copy it. Paste it in the project window on the left along with your clips. Now drag and drop it on all the rest of your clips. You should be immediately able to playback most formats in the new size (they should be yellow slices.)