[iMOTOR]

I know how to capture 16:9 and stretch it back out to normal in fpx, thats the easy part. But then when I save as mpeg or print to tape, it squeezes the image back to 4:3 instead of showing the image full widescreen in a letterbox. Does anyone know how to print 16:9 to letterboxed 4:3 in fpx?



Thanks

[JB72]

You might have better luck over at 2 Pop: http://www.uemforums.com/2pop/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php

[buddhabelly]

Originally posted by iMOTOR:
I know how to capture 16:9 and stretch it back out to normal in fpx, thats the easy part. But then when I save as mpeg or print to tape, it squeezes the image back to 4:3 instead of showing the image full widescreen in a letterbox. Does anyone know how to print 16:9 to letterboxed 4:3 in fpx?



Thanks

If FCE is anything like Pro, what you do is nest the 16:9 sequence into a 4:3 sequence, render, and print to tape. This should be in your manual or the FCE help. Do a search on nesting.

If you want to go to MPEG-2 for DVD you have 2 choices depending on how your making the DVD.

1) DVD Studio Pro-Leave the footage squished and tell DVDSP that you want the disc to be 16:9 and the DVD player to process the footage.

2)iDVD-Doesn't, ASAIK, support 16:9. However, there was a tutorial somewhere about how to build the project as normal, then open one of the header files in a text (or hex) editor and manually enter the switch to force 16:9 on the playback DVD player. Do a Google for iDVD anamorphic hack or something to that nature.

Either way, leave the footage squished!! Less headaches in the end.

Alternativley, if your encoding for web output, in most any of the encoding programs, Compressor, Cleaner and even ffmpegx, there is usually a flag where you can tell the program the footage is anamorphic 16:9 and it will change the aspect ratio for you.

[iMOTOR]

Thanks, it worked. What I did in fce is first set the "easy setup" menu to anamorphic then capture the footage then set the easy setup menu to normal and nest the footage in the new sequence. Note: in my original post, fpx should read "fce", it was late and I couldn't think strait.

[Axo1ot1]

why would you want letterboxing in the first place? why don't you just export it 16:9?

[iMOTOR]

Originally posted by Axo1ot1:
why would you want letterboxing in the first place? why don't you just export it 16:9?

because I wan't to output for web and quicktime does not reformat 16:9, there has also been an issue with some old dvd players not reformating 16:9.

[Axo1ot1]

Originally posted by iMOTOR:
because I wan't to output for web and quicktime does not reformat 16:9, there has also been an issue with some old dvd players not reformating 16:9.

Yes it does.

When you export your movie export using the quicktime conversion exporter. You will get a screen like this:



Click on the options button and you will get a video settings window. Click on the button that says size and you can force the movie into 16:9



Why would you chose to do this over exporting a 4:3 with letterboxing? A few reasons. First it devotes all of the bandwidth that the file takes up to the actual movie. The black bars add to the ammount of time it will take to download and do not lend anything to the experience. Second, with regard to DVD players, if you are exporting as anamorphic many DVD players will need you to change a setting or two in thier menus to adjust for this. The issue with burning it to a DVD player with the letterboxing on there is that if you ever try to play it on a widescreen TV it will be letterboxed not only on the tops of the video, but now also on the sides of the video. This is annoying and looks amateurish.