I am no stranger to Final Cut but this is giving me the biggest head ache lately. I have a project that is hdv and in the sequence settings it is set to 16.9 anamorphic. When I export to 720 480 and tell it to use letter boxing to preserve the aspect ratio it squishes the image in between two pillar mattes. I tried many different things to try and get it to letterbox correctly like putting in 720 480 as "custom". I even tried 720 380 which should fit the sequence with no need for letterboxing but it still puts the pillars. I go to quicktime conversion and I use mpeg and in size I type 720 480 and check the box to preserve aspect ratio via letterboxing. Is there just a setting I am overlooking?

It's funny because I uninstalled leopard because Final Cut wasn't working on it and now I am facing this.

James

Drop your HDV sequence into suitable 720x480 timeline and export from there. Jon done.

Cheers
Andy

I dropped it into a dv timeline and it letterboxes it. That is an easy work around but still why is Final Cut have issues when it comes to exporting hdv footage into a SD box while letterboxing correctly?

James,

That is an odd duck. I export HDV into a letterboxed 4:3 on a regular basis w/o a problem. What exactly are the sequence settings you are using and have you tried exporting a clip straight from the FCP Browser window to see if it exhibits the same behavior?


-A

James,

HDV is already a 16:9 format; if you hit the "anamorphic" radio button during export then that is where your problem lies.

"Anamorphic" is used *only* when shooting in 4:3 SD and you've used an anamorphic lens - which would require using the anamorphic radio button during export to bring it to the proper dimensions.

Ya still can't maintain aspect ratio when exporting. I have to nest my hdv sequences into sequences that are SD. I have just been exporting quicktime references and using Sorenson squeeze.

I have a project that is hdv and in the sequence settings it is set to 16.9 anamorphic. When I export to 720 480 and tell it to use letter boxing to preserve the aspect ratio it squishes the image in between two pillar mattes.


Try this: create a new HDV sequence and make sure the anamorphic button is not checked, then copy/paste your clips from your anamorphic timeline to your non-anamorphic timeline, do your export.

That did not work either. I selected 720 by 480 4:3 in the drop down and checked preserve aspect ratio via letterbox and it did an anamorphic squeeze. It's funny how sometimes the video gets squeezed and sometimes it gets vertical matting along with the squeeze.

Just to be sure I went to preferences and threw away my old preferences so that final cut had to start over and still no joy.

It's almost too weird but I don't know whats wrong.