can’t figure out how to output at 16:9

[Jaap Verdenius]

Remove all letterboxing in the sequence, set your sequence to 16:9 and then scale up all 4:3 clips to 133% in their motion tabs.

[Emma Assin]

hi Jaap
yes, that’s what i’ve done – my sequence is 16:9, no letterboxing displays in FCP now. despite this, when I do a straight output as a quicktime without touching the settings, it outputs as 4:3, squashing the image. now i have taken that movie and using quicktime pro, have restored it to 16:9. when i burn this to a dvd i am getting the widescreen image i want. BUT i see some loss of quality in the movie and also a slight washing out of the color (looks like the brightness is upped). my question now is how can i output at a higher quality? what settings should i fiddle with? my movie is 20 mins long and is coming out around 4MB – am i right in thinking i can afford to make the output from FCP a larger file and thus better quality? will this help the quality of the final DVD? and the color issue?
thanks!
emma.

[Jaap Verdenius]

Hi Emma,

I don’t think your quicktime was squashed, it’s the way other apps handle the file. A file with 16:9 aspect ratio has the same number of pixels as a 4:3 file, but is flagged to display with a 1,422 pixel aspect ratio – more rectangular.
So if you noticed any picture degradation, it could be the result of what you did in Quicktime Pro.

My workflow in this is to
– export using Compressor, choose one of the standard settings in the settings window under Apple>DVD (varying from fast encode to best quality), which will give me an MPEG for video and a Dolby file for audio
– import those into DVD Studio Pro and put it on a track set to “16:9 PanScan&Letterbox”, which will flag the track to be displayed as letterbox on a 4:3 screen.

I don’t know which FCP version you are using, but if it is 6 then you have FC Studio 2 which also has DVD Studio Pro.

Jaap

[Emma Assin]

that’s interesting – thanks for the reply. i’m going to try what you suggest tonight. i almost tried exporting with compressor before but was a bit daunted by the number of choices i was presented with! will take your advice and give it a go. yes i have dvd studio pro and used it to make my dvd already, so think i’ll be able to figure out where to change this setting you mention! thanks for being patient with a n00b! 😀
emma.

[Jaap Verdenius]

Alternatively, if Compressor if too much of a hassle, you could also skip that and import the quicktime directly into DVD Studio Pro, as it can also take care of the encoding (but the settings are a bit more limited).

By the way, I forgot to mention that Quicktiome Player has a setting “enable Final Cut color compatibility” in the Preferences (bottom of the general tab). If it is enabled, that may account for brightness looking a bit upped like you described earlier.

Good luck!

Jaap

[Emma Assin]

ah ha! thanks so much! i’ll let you know how i get on tonight 🙂

[Emma Assin]

well i got on… not so great. tried exporting with compressor using the 90 min DVD setting and took the files into DVD studio pro. it then started an encoding process (i thought it wouldn’t need to since they had already been compressed for DVD) and then froze at 90%. then i tried again exporting from FCP and using the resulting file in DVD studio pro. worked ok, but again the quality isn’t what i would have hoped for. and when i get info on the DVD it’s just 1.1GB – is there any way i can force it up to the full capacity of the DVD and max out the quality?? this is what i’d really like to do. i even tried exporting an uncompressed version from FCP (came out at 35GB) but when i burned a DVD using that i got the same 1.1GB and average quality. i’ve got a premiere looming and need to get this DVD in the mail… any help would be so appreciated! thank you!