16×9 format

[Yussef Cole]

Hey,
I’m working on a 16:9 movie.

Originally in AE I was working at 720 480, widescreen, but found that the ratio was sort of incorrect. When I brought it into FCP and set the clip to “anamorphic” the video stretched more than it had in AE when Widescreen aspect ratio simulation was turned on. So this is what I do now:

I start and put everything together in a square pixels comp of: 864×486. (you’ll see that AE switches it’s “lock aspect ratio” button to 16:9 instead of 3:2 or whatver it was with DV widescreen.)

Then I create a non-square DV NTSC comp, bring the 864 by 486 comp in and command option f to scale it to 720 by 480. Then I export bring it into FCP and select Anamorphic under clip settings. When it scales back out it looks exactly correct.

Try it out, you can apparently use other comp sizes beside 864 by 486 but I haven’t experimented.

Also: apparently this isn’t necessary according to a tutorial by rick gerard about aspect ratios, you can do a search for that on cow but I didn’t really get what he was putting down so I find my way easier.

-Yussef

[Matt Larson]

I aslo use 864 x 486 but instead of dropping it into another comp torender out, I make a render preset that is set to “stretch” my comp to 720 x 486. (Using D1 frames not DV, but the same applies.) If you;re doing this a lot it’s just one less thing to have to remember instead of dropping it into another comp. Try it!

[Isaac]

wow thank you guys i am going to experiment more with this stuff. appreciate all the input