If you're editing HD100 footage

in a 1280 x 720 AIC formated sequence at 23.98 how do you crop it so that you can have that neat 2.35 wide movie letterbox thingamajig?

There is already so many threads covering that issue. Do a search and you will find the knowldge =) SEARCH: 2:35.1

I searched (that's how I found this thread) but can only find topics applicable to SD rather that HD. I have the same question; I want to crop my 1080i footage from my Z1 from 1.77:1 to 2.35:1.

I know PPro has a 'clip' function that allows this, but I don't know how to tell how many pixels I should be clipping.

Are you using FCP? IF so, use the crop, but perhaps the "matte" in Effects and select 2:35.1. Then you can crop out the black letterbox afterwards.

I'm using Premiere Pro and the 'clip' function to do it, but I don't know how much to clip. Has anybody done it and got the correct aspect ratio of 2.35:1 with 1080i footage? Or 720p footage for Bruce?

The use the "widescreen" video filter found in the Matte sub-menu. It has presets for all of the common aspect ratios.

Someone posted a few years ago with a link to Photoshop files of the various aspect ratio mattes that you simply drop in as a new top video layer, the advantage over selecting the filter in FCP that it took less time to render. Anyone know where these can be found?

...and then I found it, from our very own Rob Lohman:

http://www.visuar.com/letterbox/calc.htm

http://www.visuar.com/letterbox/calc.htm

SUH-WEET!!!