I recently had 16:9 HDV footage converted to DV and tried to upload it into iMovie, but the image is 4:3 stretched. was the 16:9 lost in my trasfer or is there a setting in iMovie I need to make?

Dan

What version of iMovie are you using? The older versions didn't support 16:9...

Hey, Dan. I'm assuming you're using iMovie HD. When opening a "new" project, iMovie asks if you will be using DV, DV widesceeen, HD (720 or 1080) and I think MPEG-4. Select DV widescreen and you should have no problem. This is assuming that when you downrezzed the HDV the aspect ratio wasn't converted to 4:3, which means if you did select the DV widescreen the resultant image would be stretched. You should be fine, though as it has many provisions to correct the situation.

One more question if you will: will it be easy to get the clips I upload into iMovie, into FCP, uncompressed?

Dan

yeah... but why not capture into FCP from the start?

It's HDV... so 'uncompressed' is sort of an oxymoron in context. :)

I tried importing into FCP (before I converted the HDV footage into DV) and using HDVxDV had trouble (am still have trouble) getting the footage from HDVxDV into FCP without it being stretched.

Here is that link in case you have any suggestions...

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?p=405016

Anyway, in that process I somehow lost the basic DVPRO Codec and I think that's the reason FCP will no longer read my firewire connection. Any thoughts?

What does pillarboxing mean?

iMovie is pulling that on me right now with: "Please wait. This may take awhile"

Pillarboxing is what you get when you fit a 4:3 image into a 16:9 frame - a black bar to the left and right of the image.

dan:

do this to set your project to widescreen (the default is 4:3, so you have to be pro-active about getting the right settings before you capture any footage):

iMovie will pillarbox automatically *unless* you set your project as widescreen. to do this:

File>New Project

a "Create Project" screen will appear with a small pulldown menu. click on "DV" and you will seen a range of choices. you must set this before you capture footage or the NLE will do as you describe....

it's kind of concealed. once you know it's there, it's easy......

I understand that, but i just uploaded a shitload of widescreen footage, and suddenly a dialogue box opened saying that it was pillarboxing. i cant do anything and have been waiting over a half hour

what's going on?

dan

...choose the widescreen setting and it's pillarboxing on me anyway,

anyone know of a way to stop it?
dna

You have turn off [in iMovie HD preferences] "automatic DV pillarboxing and letterboxing"

This is necessary if you are using an anamorphic lens adapter for example.

Dan where are you at on this? Figured it out yet?