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squeeze mode on the dvx100a in FCP
hi, i’m a newbie to the board.
i’m using squeeze mode on the DVX100A at 25p and importing to FCP 4.5HD. i’ve been trialling for some upcoming shoots and would like to produce native 16:9 DVD’s, ie on a widescreen monitor they appear widescreen and on a 4:3 they appear letterbox. all i’ve been able to do so far is letterbox, meaning on a widscreen monitor they appear as postage stamp (v unproffessional!).
i’ve tried no end of import and export settings to get it to work properly but, as yet, to no avail.
i wondered if anyone could point me in the right directions…
thanks in anticipiation.
alex
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3 Replies
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Alex,
Welcome to Creative Cow. As you’re going through the process of making a 16:9 movie keep saying the word “anamorphic” several times. In your head of course, otherwise people will start talking.
I’m assuming that because you’ve captured your footage at 25p you live in a PAL country. Therfore, your squeezed footage from the DVX100 has to be captured using the DV PAL 16:9 Anamorphic setting, edited in the same Anamorphic timeline, and exported using the DV PAL 16:9 Anamorphic setting.
Once you’ve exported your final QT movie, if your ultimate goal is to create a DVD, then your Compressor project settings have to be DV PAL 16:9 Anamorphic. Your DVD project settings should also be the same, making sure that the properties of your main movie track display mode is set to 16:9 Letterbox. This setting will tell your DVD player to play a widescreen movie with black bars on the top and bottom on a 4:3 TV, but will fill the screen on a 16:9 TV.
Hope this helps.
– Don
“Please take a moment to fill out your profile, including your computer system and relevant software. Help us help you.”
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thanks for that,
i think it solves the problem. i’ll run a few test dvd and see what happens.
my only other query is if i could shoot in 4:3 (possibly with a second, cheaper camera) use an anamorphic matte in FCP. could this be mixed with the anamorphic footage and one movie created. i realise that there would be a loss in horizontal resolution due to the stretching of the 4:3 image, but strictly speaking, shooting in squeeze mode on the DVX causes some resolution loss as well. as for my clients, they don’t pay enough to worry about it or notice it!!
thanks again
alex
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[fromcalifornia] “my only other query is if i could shoot in 4:3 (possibly with a second, cheaper camera) use an anamorphic matte in FCP. could this be mixed with the anamorphic footage and one movie created.”
Yeah, you can do that too. It’s called “shoot and protect 16:9.” So, you shoot in 4:3 but you need guides on the top and bottom of your viewfinder so you don’t cut people’s heads off when it’s time to make a 16:9 version of your 4:3 movie. The beauty of shooting this way is that you’ll always have a full rez 4:3 version of your movie, but gives you the option of making widescreen, too. For example with the Canon GL2 you can turn on 16:9 guides when shooting in 4:3 mode. Others will actually use a bit of masking tape on their flip out LCD screens to hide the top and bottom parts that will be later cropped in post to make a 16:9 frame.
To make a widescreen version of a 4:3 frame that works in an anamorphic timline you’ll need to physically crop your full screen clips to the 16:9 aspect ratio. It’ll now be smaller than the rest of your widescreen footage, so you need to display your clip in the viewer or canvas window with ‘image and wireframe’ checked. Then just drag the corner of your cropped clips and expand them until they’re the same size as the rest of your anamorphic footage. DV footage will usually expand to 112% before it starts to show a resolution loss, so you’re still going to see a difference in quality between the regular widescreen footage and the cropped and expanded 4:3 footage. Hope this makes sense.
– Don
“Please take a moment to fill out your profile, including your computer system and relevant software. Help us help you.”
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