I'm thinking of cutting a documentary that was taped largely in 4:3 as 16:9. I don't want to "stretch" the 4:3 into 16:9 either, I need to figure out how to just have black borders on the side. The reasons are:

-It's a movie making-of doco, now the viewer won't have to take the tv out of 16:9 if they just watched the movie.
-What little 16:9 footage I shot can be presented as shot, without changing modes.
-I hate the way some TV sets convert 4:3 into 16:9. It's hard to explain, but in short sometimes pans look like they are "pinned to the screen" in places.
-I hate the way some TV sets put up grey or white bars on the sides when they are in 4:3 mode.

Does any of that make sense? I haven't messed with Premeire Pro in 16:9 much so I need to do some experimenting to see if it will work. Just wondering if anyone has done something like this already. Thanks for any thoughts...!

Just create a 16:9 project in Premiere and import all your 4:3 footage. Edit, export as a 16:9 file after you're done, and that's it. But beware, if you go this route, if you watch it on a 4:3 TV, you will have borders on all 4 sides of the screen, making your picture smaller. So you'd have to make a version for 16:9 TV's and one for 4:3 TV's.

Hi Chris, thanks for the reply!
I tested this out with the XL2 today and something funny happened.
I took the camera outside and did three shots in 16:9, paused to switch to 4:3, then did the same three shots. This got captured into a new 16:9 project. All the 4:3 footage wound up stretched to fit 16:9, and a bit smooshed vertically.

To verify the smoosh, I put the XL2 on a desk with a CD in front of it, and captured ten seconds of it in 4:3 then 16:9, both by 1394 straight from the cam. I totally expected that cd to be smooshed in the 4:3 shot, but after rendering it was fine, and even had letterboxed sides like you mention!

I think something during the capture confused Premiere into thinking 4:3 was 16:9. A big difference in the tests was that the tape was captured, then the cd at 16:9, then the cd at 4:3. That's a lot of data, if anyone knows what happened I'd love to hear it.

**Mods, this went from a theory question to a Premiere question, feel free to move it if you like