Can I convert my film’s aspect ratio from 4X3 to 16X9 using FCP 6.0.6 to then export a self-contained QT file?

[Nick Meyers]

You put the 4×3 picture with SIZE AT 100% inside a 16×9 frame
Nothing is blown-up.
There are not Black bars nowhere.
The top and bottom of the picture are cropped.
rafael

Raphael, what do you mean by 16/9 frame?
if you mean a 16/9 sequence, then what you say doesn’t make any sense.

if you mean a 16/9 mask well, then there are black bars top & bottom

nick

[Rafael Amador]

[Nick Meyers] “Raphael, what do you mean by 16/9 frame?
if you mean a 16/9 sequence, then what you say doesn’t make any sense.

if you mean a 16/9 mask well, then there are black bars top & bottom”
I was talking about a 16×9 sequence, but you are right. the picture size will be 133%.

I have messed my self. Sorry, I was thinking in terms of definition and in this case we do not really blow the picture up, but interpolate horizontal lines to change the picture geometry.
We start with 720 vertical lines and end up with the same 720 lines.

Anyway, letter-boxing means that on 16×9 screens we will end up with black bars no only on top and bottom, but also at both sides. Will lose lot of vertical definition.
Working on a 16×9 frame, we will display 720×480/6 active lines.

For me the idea of letter-boxing makes no much sense. That’s the resource we have been using for years because screens where 4×3 and many of them had no Anamorphic option. Screens now are 16×9.

[Donia Mili] ”
I also wrote to the distributor, asking them just how much this 16:9 format meant to them :)?”
You should.
If the film is 4×3, should be played like that.
better being pillar-boxed on 16×9 screens, that missing part of the picture.
rafael

[Mark Suszko]

This likely won’t help your situation, but I had a video given to me to edit that was shot in the wrong aspect ratio of 3:4 when the others in the series were all anamorphic 16:9. I tried blowing up the SD 3:4 and then masking it, wasn’t happy with the effect because of lost resolution and headroom issues. I edited myself around the problem.

I dropped the 3:4 into a new 16:9 timeline, pushed it over to the left margin of safe action, which takes two-thirds of the screen, and added sub-screens to the right side one-third of the screen, alternating them over time much like some of the sequences in the film doc of “Woodstock”. Sometimes it was two 3:4’s stacked in that third of the space with a thin black mullion, other times, a tall, narrow, double-height single screen, which worked great for showing the map of Illinois, for instance, which is taller than it is wide. In those PIP windows, I would put in a mix of stills and motion footage of stuff that would normally be full-screen cut-away shots for whatever the guy in the main window was talking about.

The hybrid screen experience works pretty darned well, and looks like an intentional aesthetic choice. Lucky for me the piece was rather short, which also helped. I don’t know how an audience would like it for an entire thirty minutes or more.

This is how it looks in the anamorphic squeeze;

And when properly un-squeezed for 16:9 viewing:

But I bring this up to suggest that maybe you could, in the future, re-edit your existing work and meet the 16:9 requirement, by just adding these kinds of secondary screens with more visual data that you didn’t have room to add in the original version. This gives you a program you could watch a couple times and still see something new each time. It’s going back to montage theory, where A+B equals a C that is more than the sum of A&B.

It worked for Marty 🙂

[Donia Mili]

Hi Mark,

I see that the philosophical insight, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts can be applied to montage theory as well, which makes sense.

I read your experiment with interest, and creatively speaking the idea of introducing on one screen, multidimensional visual threads speaks to me. I have a hard time with concision, my first film runs about 130 min, while the second one (the one I have been asked to transform into a 16:9 widescreen) is about 110 min. The more, the better is my M.O.!

These days, it seems to me that audiences are evolving, and demanding a more specialized content, not to mention there is an audience for everything. In short and in the near future, I want to try to edit secondary screens as you described above; the French in me is all giddy about it!

For now I have to focus on the more practical and efficient solution to respond to the distributor’s demands, but know that your input has not fallen on deaf ears.

Thank you for the inspiration.

Shine on,

Donia

[Donia Mili]

Nick, many thanks for paying close attention to my question and the thread.

A big thank you to Rafael as well, and yes, I agree that leaving my film at 4:3 would be the better way to go.

In gratitude,

Donia

[Nick Meyers]

thinking more about it over the weekend.

while i argued that as you will most likely have to blow the piece up anyway, so you might as well do that in FCP,
there is a good argument against this,
2 in fact.

1. FCP’s scaling is not the best.
2. it ads a later of complexity

so i i now think the best way forward is to duplicate your sequence,
place a 16/9 mask over it’s entirely,
and re-frame / re-work you shots underneath that mask

export this to give you a letterboxes version.
you then have two options:
crop your export down. ok if you are delivering a small frame-size for the web.
blow it up in After Effects, or some app that does a better job of scaling than FCP

nick

[Donia Mili]

Hi Nick,

Thanks for brainstorming even further about this issue.

I’m willing to give this other method a shot, but the challenge will be to find a better app than FCP to do the scaling afterward.

I don’t have After Effects, and I’m not familiar with this application. I am also in Brazil at the moment, but on my way back to the NYC in the next couple of months or so and there, I would find some options.

Yours till the cow mooooooooooooos,

Donia

[Rafael Amador]

[Donia Mili] “I’m willing to give this other method a shot, but the challenge will be to find a better app than FCP to do the scaling afterward. “
Motion has very good resizing filter: Lanczos.
Is not on the Filters folder, but on Image Units > Geometry Adjustment.
rafael

[Bob Mark]

I know this is an old thread, but what did you wind up doing?

Bob

[Donia Mili]

Hi Bob,

I did not get a chance to do the conversion yet, as my life took an unexpected turn and I have had to put the indie film world on the back burner. In the meantime, a fellow filmmaker emailed me personally in August about this very conversion issue, and this is what he wrote:

Question?
Can I convert my film’s aspect ratio from 4X3 to 16X9?

Yes, fast and easy.

Best Way to Convert 4×3 to 16×9

I shot all my films in 4×3 (1.33:1).

Download FormatFactory 3.1.1
Freeware (Professional Media Converter)
https://www.pcfreetime.com/download.html

1. Install,
2. Run,
3. On the left-side menu bar, click on the format you want to convert to (example avi, mov, etc),
4. Click on, Add File (your source),
5. Select (source file) click on open,
6. Click on output settings,
7, Select (High quality and size) option,
8. Click on (video Size) and set to (720×480 DVD-NTSC),
9. Click on (Aspect Ratio) and set to (16:9),
10. Click on OK,
11. Select (Output Folder),
12. Click on OK,
13. Click on (Start) top menu bar.
14. Wait for a few hours (2-15 hours) depending on how fast your system is and how big your source file is.

Your Done 🙂

Your newly converted video will be 16×9 (1.78:1) anamorphic widescreen (the best form of widescreen available).

There will not be black bars on the sides when viewing this on a widescreen 16×9 TV, it will fill the screen.

Another, thing I should mention is after you create your new (16:9) source file, you’ll want to create DVD masters and DVD copies. In order to do so correctly, you will need to set your DVD creator program to (16:9) if, you do not it will be created as a re-encoded as a (4:3) aspect ratio again.

Use (the following) Freeware Program:

VSO DivxtoDVD 0.5.2b

https://www.afterdawn.com/software/audio_video/convert_video/vso_divxtodvd_free.cfm
(It’s easy and professional)

It will convert avi, divx, xvid, mov, mp4 and so on.

A vast majority, of filmmakers use this program.

As simple as 1,2,3 really….

Install,
Run,
Select Source File,
Select Destination Folder,
Select Aspect – Click on (Force 16:9),
Select Standard – Click on (Automatic),
Click on (Convert) button.

Your Done 🙂 it takes around 2 hours if, your source file has a runtime of 90 minutes.

Your DVD will be region free, have Dolby Digital 2.0 Audio and be anamorphic widescreen (1.78:1).

*****

Burn to a Blank DVD-R or DVD+R disc with the burning program of your choice.

One important thing you’ll need to make sure you do, before you burn to a Blank DVD is (the following):

Create a folder – Title it:
AUDIO_TS
(just as you see it here with the caps and underscore).

Do not put anything in the folder leave it empty.

Burn this folder AUDIO_TS and the VIDEO_TS Folder that was created by VSO DivxtoDVD to a blank DVD.

The AUDIO_TS Folder allows for older and some newer model DVD player to detect the DVD content correctly and to confirm it’s an actual DVD being played.

Donia