Final Cut Pro aspect problem.

ZENER

Hi all, first post in this forum so please go easy on me.

I've been given the job of transferring media from a videobooth to dvd. The files are in .flv format and are 640 x 360 resolution at ~30fps which I believe is about 16:9 format. As the files cannot be directly edited in FCP in this format I convert them to .mov files using FLV Crunch. The resulting files play fine on the Mac in Quicktime Player and maintain their aspect ratio with no letter-boxing and still measure 640 x 360 pixels.

The problem is that when they are edited in FCP (ver 7.0) the resulting movie is in 4:3 aspect (720x480) which means there are black bands above and below the video. To further complicate it, when the movie is imported to iDVD to a 16:9 theme the result is a 4:3 aspect video with black bands above and below in the middle of a 16:9 frame.

Can anyone suggest how I keep the 16:9 aspect of the original movies in the output from FCP ? I can't see a widescreen 16:9 option in the settings for FCP for standard def - only Hi-Def ones.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated - I've spent 3 days trying various conversions and recoding of the video to no avail.

Thanks !!

Ken

Freddie59

I don't know if this will be of any help, but here goes:

If I import SD video into FCE (a close relation) I have to tell it to capture it in DV PAL 48Khz Anamorphic (it's recorded in WS). But when you watch it in the capture window it appears as 4:3!!

It shows in the FCE viewer as WS, but, after i export it using QT prior to burning in iDVD, I have to open it it QT and resize it to 1024 x 576. This solves the issue, but, to my eye anyway, degrades it slightly.

Far more convoluted than Pinnacle Studio, which I used on a PC, without any such issues.

Hope that helps.:)

Regards,

F.

DonnieScribbles

Are you sure it's not your sequence settings, or are the files importing into FCP as 4:3? The settings below should get you a 16:9 sequence.



If the files are importing as 4:3, I'm not sure, maybe try another conversion app, MPEG Streamclip is very reliable.

ZENER

Thanks guys for the pointers !! Both turned out to be helpful.

It seems as DonnieScribbles said I needed to set the Sequence settings to 720x480 NTSC DV (3:2) (all the files are 30fps) with the Anamorphic Switch ON which changes from a square shaped pixel. These movies played fine in Quicktime but returned to Letterbox 4:3 in iDVD. The solution was to set a Custom output for Quicktime Export to set the resolution to 740x405. This then transfers fine to iDVD and plays correctly in 16:9 format. I'd like to be able to claim plaudits for the solution myself but it was an old article about FCP version 1.2 on the Apple website that explained the process fully !!

For anyone in a similar situation the article is here.

I doubt this will be the last you see of me here though . . . lots more questions to ask

Thanks again !!

Ken

Freddie59

ZENER wrote: »

Thanks guys for the pointers !! Both turned out to be helpful.

It seems as DonnieScribbles said I needed to set the Sequence settings to 720x480 NTSC DV (3:2) (all the files are 30fps) with the Anamorphic Switch ON which changes from a square shaped pixel. These movies played fine in Quicktime but returned to Letterbox 4:3 in iDVD. The solution was to set a Custom output for Quicktime Export to set the resolution to 740x405. This then transfers fine to iDVD and plays correctly in 16:9 format. I'd like to be able to claim plaudits for the solution myself but it was an old article about FCP version 1.2 on the Apple website that explained the process fully !!

For anyone in a similar situation the article is here.

I doubt this will be the last you see of me here though . . . lots more questions to ask

Thanks again !!

Ken

Glad you got sorted. Interesting read.:)

cindys

Can I just ask if which one is better? Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere Pro? Thanks.

ZENER

cindys wrote: »

Can I just ask if which one is better? Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere Pro? Thanks.

Hard to say really. Up until now FCP was only 32 bit whereas I believe now Premier is 64bit in CS5. I've not tried FCX - the new version of Final Cut - but I hear they've adopted the front end of iMove 09 which I detest !! I'd used FCP in the past so was more familiar with it's layout but may now give Premier a try purely for its 64bit engine and hopefully faster rendering speed.

One annoyance with FCP version 7 is the need to render audio in clips before it can be played back. There may be a way of doing this automatically but I've not been able to find it so far.

I think until Quicktime is made 64bit we'll be stuck with slower rendering times and overall performance. My current setup is a 2.5GHz Core2Quad CPU with 4GB and a couple of 500GB drives and a GT240 video card with 1GB DDR3. If this work continues to arrive I may update to an i7 with 8GB and use Premier in 64bit. At least until Apple realise the errors in their way and give us back the more familiar FCP frontend with full 64bit support !!

The project turned out fine in the end though without any crashes. The weak link was my own lack of knowledge of Digital Video but the last couple of weeks has been a good experience and I've learned a lot both about FCP and DV.

Thanks again for the info and advice !!

Ken