Hey guys, Having trouble. I'm trying to apply the widescreen to my footage. I'm going from 6.66:1 to 2.35:1 the problem is that if I apply widescreen to footage at 100% scale, all is fine. If I increse the scale it applies the the footage that has been cropped out. I tried to apply the widescreen first then change scale AND the other way around. I dont want to export the whole movie and then have to go back and cut the whole thing up just to do this one thing. Is there any way to make this work? I cant just drop it onto a full finished movie because I have to adjust the offset on each clip. Any advice is appreciated.

Apologies if I misunderstand what you are trying to do, but if I follow correctly:

You are applying a widescreen mask to your video -- you found this under Video Filters>Matte>Widescreen. I'm guessing this is what you mean by 'I apply widescreen to footage' ...

If this is what you are doing, it is almost surely not what you want -- all this is doing is putting a prebuilt black mask on the top and bottom of your video -- it isn't 'converting' or 'changing' it to widescreen. You will now have 4:3 video masked top and bottom to deliver a 16:9 image in a 4:3 file ...

As you mention, the mask gets moved when you scale the clip.

I think what you really want to do is start with a sequence setting that is 16:9 -- you will have to tell FCP this, as it prefers to match your sequence setting to your source material. Now when you place a 4:3 clip on the timeline, you use the scale instruction to choose how the widescreen view is applied to the material -- do you pillarbox, do you scale up and crop (by simply leaving it outside the canvas area) top and bottom, do you crop more from the top or bottom, et cetera.

HTH
GB

You create a widescreen sequence and drag the clip into it. If it wasn't filmed widescreen to begin with changing it this way will distort/stretch the image. Note widescreen is often referred to as Anamorphic.

"If it wasn't filmed widescreen to begin with changing it this way will distort/stretch the image."

Well, maybe there is a preference to prevent distort/stretch -- on my system, it does neither. It starts by placing in a pillarbox, and it is easy enough to to resize the clip so that is off canvas 'cropped' top and bottom. At no time do I get distortion or stretch.

Cheers,
GB

There is a distort setting under the motion tab if you highlight a clip which might be what Pete is thinking of. Sometimes you use it to deal with widescreen issues. FCP tends use it when you put a clip of a different size than the sequence you are using.

If you don't want to lose any of the image you would have to stretch it.

Convert 4x3 Video to 16x9 Widescreen (http://www.mediacollege.com/video/aspect-ratio/4x3-to-16x9.html)

But when its filmed widescreen its not distorted. I can't explain the mechanics of it.

Thanks Guys, I didn't think to make the. Changes in sequence settings. I'm going to let you know what happens. Im going to create a new sequence and try to paste my timeline into it, we'll see how it goes.

Note widescreen is often referred to as Anamorphic.

Anamorphic has a very specific meaning, and doesn't universally apply to widescreen.

Standard definition video is always 720x480 in NTSC, but actually displays as 640x480. So the pixels are not square -- they are slightly taller than they are wide, to make 720 fit into a 640 display. If, on the other hand, the pixels are described as much wider than they are tall ... you create an anamorphic view, and you get a widescreen result. This is typically used on a widescreen release of a DVD -- the image is encoded as 720x480, as it must be, but if viewed in a 640x480 screen (a traditional standard definition screen) you will see a 'squished' view where everyone is tall and skinny. The proper view for a 720x480 anamorphic widescreen is on a 16:9 screen -- an HD TV -- where the pixels are spread wider so the resulting display fills a widescreen and everyone looks 'correct' or perhaps there are black letterbox bars added top and bottom to a traditional 4:3 standard definition display; again, everyone looks correct.

When you are working with SD material, such as DV filmed material, you will encounter the anamorphic flag to make the display corrections cited above. You don't see the anamorphic flag in HD material, as the pixels are always square, and the display is always 16:9

Clear as mud?

Cheers,
GB

You don't see the anamorphic flag in HD material, as the pixels are always square, and the display is always 16:9

Not ENTIRELY true...

1440x1080 material (HDV and several MPEG variants) IS anamorphic as it "unpacks" to 1920x1080.

DVCProHD also uses non square pixels in both the 1080 and 720 "flavours" of HD.

Yes, HD is always 16:9 so the material should always display at 16:9.

Thanks for the reminder Shaun -- you're quite correct, there are some HD acquisition formats that are anamorphic. I think though that all the delivery methods of HD are square pixel, which is my humble excuse for getting this wrong.

Cheers,
GB

I was alerting the OP that in FCP sequence settings he won't find "Widescreen" instead its called Anamorphic. Rightly or wrongly, these two terms often are considered synonymous.

They aren't synonymous but one could argue that all standard definition video that isn't optimized for Web viewing is anamorphic.

Ie. DV video at 16:9 is anamorphic with a resolution of 720x480 and a PAR of 1.2. But I can encode files for the Web at a PAR of 1 with a resolution of 853x480 which is 16:9 widescreen but NOT anamorphic.

I was alerting the OP that in FCP sequence settings he won't find "Widescreen" instead its called Anamorphic. Rightly or wrongly, these two terms often are considered synonymous.

But 'anamorphic' would be the wrong setting to use -- anamorphic is for those that are using _source_ material that is anamorphic, not for those that have ordinary source and want to produce a widescreen result. That's my point.

Cheers,
GB

Oh I see, I always shoot widescreen now a days so I'm not as familiar with 4:3 conversion.

"I always shoot widescreen now a days so I'm not as familiar with 4:3 conversion."

Quite so, as many of us do now -- so you would avoid 'anamorphic' unless you shot an HDV format which is a sort of 'junior anamorphic' -- all the AVCHD formats use square pixels and so are not anamorphic at all.

Cheers,
GB

Hey guys, I'm sorry i was so unclear. I'm not starting with dv material. I'm starting with 1920x1080 footage. but I'm trying to crop it even more. Here are two examples guysfull is 6.66:1 and guyswide is 2.35:1. My original problem is in my original post (first post). thanks again for taking the time to look.

If you want to create the look of an even widerscreen format than you shot, do your entire edit, then lay a mask over the final timeline. Create the mask yourself, to whatever dimensions you want. Place the mask on the timeline on a track on top of everything else. If there are shots that need to be 'recentred' as a consequence, use the Motion dialogue or the 'image+wireframe' on the problematic shots.

If you need to see the mask lines during the editing process, just enable the track that has the mask.

This assumes you don't really want to crop -- what I'm suggesting is a letterbox mask over the 1080 dimension. But if you do in fact want to crop, I'd still follow the same process I've outlined, then crop in the output phase. Presumably you have already sorted out the dimensions of your export, and the format, as they won't work in traditional Blu-Ray discs, for instance -- so if you want to crop out the mask you've applied, just use the appropriate commands in Compressor -- the preview function will show you if you are cropping enough to eliminate your mask.

HTH
GB

Thanks everybody, lot's of help

"Quite so, as many of us do now -- so you would avoid 'anamorphic' unless you shot an HDV format which is a sort of 'junior anamorphic' -- all the AVCHD formats use square pixels and so are not anamorphic at all."

That explains the confusion, I first moved to Widescreen DV and then to HDV, so that's all I've ever really know.

I think what you really want to do is start with a sequence setting that is 16:9 -- you will have to tell FCP this, as it prefers to match your sequence setting to your source material. Now when you place a 4:3 clip on the timeline, you use the scale instruction to choose how the widescreen view is applied to the material -- do you pillarbox, do you scale up and crop (by simply leaving it outside the canvas area) top and bottom, do you crop more from the top or bottom, et cetera.

HTH
GB

This is what I need to sort out as a workflow .

Just this week , I got a pair of JVC GY-DV500 cameras which shoot 4:3 , although there is a 16:9 'safe area' indicator in the viewfinder which I can use as a guide when shooting . My camcorders are PAL 720x576 resolution .

I came from using a Sony VX-1000 which had a 16:9 mode which imported as a 16:9 image .

I now need to crop my 4:3 material to 16:9 when I import it . Currently using FCP 6.0.6 on a Powermac G5 .

I already tried the 'widescreen' filter , but this only letterboxes a 16:9 image within a 4:3 canvas .

Early days yet , but I will figure it out .

I am very familiar with the GY-DV500 camera. It can shoot letterboxed 16:9 within 4:3. This in effect throws a lot of resolution out the window, this is not anamorphic. In my opinion, don't use these cameras to shoot 16:9 unless you are willing to find optical anamorphic lens adapters. Very expensive, cheaper to buy new HD cameras.

I can't grumble since I was given the two 500's ! However I had to source a couple of lenses since I got only the bodies . Since they had been used in a studio , one had only 29 drum hours and the other 38 so practically new .

We already have a couple of 500's at work , as well as a 5000 ; the 5000 has the letterbox 16:9 mode but not the 500 ( at least not the PAL versions we have here in the UK ) . I have in the past shot a fair bit of 16:9 cropped from 4:3 sensors and whilst you do obviously throw some resolution away , you can get away with it - again with PAL we are starting off with a few more lines than you guys over the pond , but your point is still valid .

I was looking to buy into HD since my old VX-1000 died recently , but having been given the pair of DV500's I am going to try them out and see how I get on .

I agree anamorphic lenses would be prohibitively expensive so not an option .

I do work for a studio that replaced their 500s with HD cameras and they can't give the old cameras away specifically because they are unable to do real anamorphic.