16:9 HD gone letterbox when inputted to fcp. Why?

[David Roth weiss]

[Rachel Hendry] “the footage that has appeared in my project on final cut is playing 16:9 letterbox instead of full height. I’ve tried playing around with the audio/video settings in final cut but to no avail.
“

Rachel,

You can’t “play around” with settings after putting video material on the timeline, that’s very clear if you go back and read the manual.

Open a new sequence, drop a piece of video onto the new timeline, and when FCP asks if want to the settings to match your video, check “yes.”

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.

[Rachel Hendry]

Thankyou for your quick response. However, when I do as you suggest and drop some video into the timeline of a new sequence, FCP doesn’t ask me anything. It simply drops it in as the same letterbox 16:9.
Do you have any other suggestions?

[David Roth weiss]

Go to User Preferences>>Editing tab and at the very bottom right you will see Auto conform sequence, which should be set to “Ask.”

Now, repeat the process… Open a new sequence and drop a clip of your HD material in and FCP should ask you what to do…

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.

[Michael Gissing]

What David is trying to help you do is match the sequence settings to the footage. What you also need to understand is how to select the correct Easy Setup before you import and edit footage.

What is your current Easy Setup and what codec did you import the HDV footage as. It is likely operator error and not FCP behaving strangely.

[Rachel Hendry]

Hello

My Easy set up says:

Sequence Preset: DV PAL 48khz Anamorphic
Capture Preset: DV PAL 48khz Anamorphic
Device Control Preset: firewire PAL

From what you’ve both said before I’m guessing I’ve got the wrong settings.

Does this mean re-capturing all the footage again using a different easy set up or can this original project still be changed to the correct settings by putting it into a new sequence?

Thanks,
Rachel

[David Roth weiss]

Rachel,

In your initial post you said that your material was HD, but your Easy Setup is DV, which is SD. If you put HD video into a SD timeline , it has to letterbox the material.

However, if you open a new timeline and either set it properly manually or automatically have it match the settings, just as I instructed you before, it will work properly in spite of the wrong Easy Setup.

However, you really should watch and memorize the following brief tutorial, which shows you exactly how to begin every new FCP project.

https://library.creativecow.net/articles/biscardi_walter/realtime_sequences.php

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.

[Michael Gissing]

It depends on what the footage was captured as. Can you get info on a clip and tell us what the capture codec is please.

[Rachel Hendry]

I’m not exactly sure what capture codec means so here are all the setting details of a clip I captured:

Item Properties

Creator: Quicktime Player
video rate: 25 fps
frame size: 720 x 576
compressor: DV – PAL
Data Rate: 3.6 MB/sec
Pixel Aspect: PAL – CCIR 601

Sequence Settings

Aspect Ratio: CCIR 601/DVPAL (5;4)
Pixel Aspect Ratio: PAL CCIR 601 (720 x 576)
Compressor: DV PAL

Thanks

[Michael Gissing]

Rachel, if you intended to have your edit in HD, then you have captured the footage as DV codec (standard def). This means the capture playback device was set to downconvert the footage to DV.

If you want HD, you will need to recapture, making sure the play device is correctly set to output HDV codec and your Easy Setup is selected to HDV 1080 50i.

[David Roth weiss]

Your material is not HD after all Rachel, it’s widescreen SD.

So, you need to select the DV PAL Easy Setup, then open a new sequence, and go to Sequence>>Settings and check the box that says “anamorphic.” That should get you all straightened out, because your footage is DV widescreen anamorphic, that is squeezed horizontally into a 4×3 frame. By checking the anamorphic box it unsqueezes it and displays widescreen.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.