Hey all,

I am brand new to editing on a Mac, and couldn't find an answer to the issue facing me by searching the forums, so hopefully one of you wonderful folks can help me.

I shot my footage at 16:9 with a Sony HVR-A1U and when capturing the computer correctly judged the footage as NTSC Anamorphic. Now I could've sworn when I started the project I made sure the setting reflected the same, NTSC Anamorphic, but as evidenced by the letterboxed nature of the image in the canvas (see attachement) FCP seems to be making the image 4:3. A quick check of the sequence setting confirms that fact, but any adjustment I make from that point in seems to do weird things to the canvas image (i.e. stretching it, yet keeping the letter box or placing the image in an even larger black space where it's surrounded on all sides by black space).

Please let me know what other information you need to help in the solving of my problem.

Thanks,

Leo

Your sequence setting should be HDV 1440x1080 (this is assuming you shot HDV with your Sony).
Check and see how your sequence is setup by hitting Apple+0.
FCP also has some amazing features under the modify command.
Your ticket is either "Scale To Sequence" or "Conform To Sequence".
I use these all the time if I have a shadow of a doubt that my media isn't cutting in native resolution.

Hope this helps,
-C