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4:3 to 16:9 in FCP?
Can anyone tell me if it’s possible to change 4:3 in to widescreen in FCP?
I have archive footage that I’d like to incorporate in to a video I shot in widescreen.
Simple instructions are appreciated!!
Thanks, AnnaAnna Little
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10 Replies
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Not enough info to answer your question. What format (HD, SD) is your FCP timeline? And what is your footage formats? HD, cropped SD, anamorphic SD?
Ernie Santella
Santella Productions Inc.
http://www.santellaproductions.com -
You can use the Distort setting in the Motion Tab to stretch your video out. But if there are people in the scene, this will definitely look weird.
We tend to keep most 4:3 material at 4:3 with black pillarboxes on both sides in the 16:9 timeline. It looks very clean.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media“Foul Water, Fiery Serpent” now in Post.
Creative Cow Forum Host:
Apple Final Cut Pro, Apple Motion, Apple Color, AJA Kona, Business & Marketing, Maxx Digital. -
Like Walter said, just drop the footage into your timeline and it will look fine. If you want to spiff it up a bit, you can put in some sort of background graphic to fill out the edges. ESPN uses their logo vertically on each side, subdued, and it look really good. In a hurry, I like using a radial gradient, with a shadow coming of the video on both sides so it pops a little. Otherwise, a nice graphic that ties with the branding of the rest of the video works very well…adds a little polish to the piece.
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Andy Mees has a free plugin the intelligently stretches a 4×4 image to 16×9. Check it out: Andy’s Elastic Aspect.
John
MacPro 8-core 2.8GHz 8 GB RAM OS 10.5.5 QT7.5.5 Kona 3 Dual Cinema 23 ATI Radeon HD 3870, 24″ TV-Logic Monitor, ATTO ExpressSAS R380 RAID Adapter, PDE enclosure with 8-drive 6TB RAID 5
FCS 2 (FCP 6.0.5, Comp 3.0.5, DVDSP 4.2.1, Color 1.0.3)Pro Tools HD w SYNC IO, Yamaha DM1000, Millennia Media HV-3C, Neumann U87, Schoeps Mk41 mics, Genelec Monitors, PrimaLT ISDN
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Thanks for all the responses.
Ok, the archive footage I filmed was in Pal, SD on my Sony PD170. The new footage, filmed on my Sony Z7 Pal, widescreen was captured in to FCP in DV Pal 48Khz Anamorphic.
Does that make sense? If there’s a better way to tell you this information – please give me instructions!
AnnaAnna Little
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Everyone has already given you great advice.
As Walter said, if you have people in your shot they will look bizarre if squashed to fit a widescreen ratio. Sometimes you might not want the image to be pillar boxed and you may not want a graphic in the background.
In this scenario, another thing to try is to click the 4:3 clip in the sequence, select the ‘Motion’ tab and go to ‘Distort’ options. Set the aspect ratio to somewhere between 30 and 37. This will ‘widen’ your image a bit but not so noticeably and you can avoid pillar boxing or backdrop graphics, should you not want to use either of those work arounds. The downside is that you need to blow up the image slightly to compensate. So, if you set the aspect ratio to, 33, say, you’ll need to put the scale to 133.33 exactly to fill the entire frame.
Obviously blowing up any image is never ideal, but I’ve got acceptable results using this method on some occasions. Not perfect, but another option anyway!
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Thanks! As you say, it’s not always great to blow up the image but I will try it.
Thanks, AnnaAnna Little
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Sure,
Give it a go. What was your source material shot on? Quality of your source footage obviously effects how acceptable it will look blown up.
FCP is pretty good at resizing so I think you’ll find you can just about get away with it! Try doing a test and exporting it to really see how it’s going to look in the final edit.
Good luck!
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Be sure that your sequence render settings are set to Best.
John
MacPro 8-core 2.8GHz 8 GB RAM OS 10.5.5 QT7.5.5 Kona 3 Dual Cinema 23 ATI Radeon HD 3870, 24″ TV-Logic Monitor, ATTO ExpressSAS R380 RAID Adapter, PDE enclosure with 8-drive 6TB RAID 5
FCS 2 (FCP 6.0.5, Comp 3.0.5, DVDSP 4.2.1, Color 1.0.3)Pro Tools HD w SYNC IO, Yamaha DM1000, Millennia Media HV-3C, Neumann U87, Schoeps Mk41 mics, Genelec Monitors, PrimaLT ISDN
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John,
Very true!
I usually do this by default (force of habit) now so forgot to mention it!
Best,
Adam
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