Creating 1.66:1 aspect ratio for archival copy

[Dino Erkel]

Hi,

I’m trying to create an archival copy of a short film that we’ve made. While I have been editing with Avid/Adobe Premiere for more than a decade now, unfortunately, I am quite a novice when it comes to delivery.

The graded footage is 2k, however, the film’s supposed final aspect ratio is 1.66:1, the classic European widescreen format. I would also like to incorporate the 5.1 wav audio.

Could anyone give me some ideas on what would be a good format to end up with a non-letterboxed 1.66:1 high-grade archival copy that includes the 5.1 sound?

I will either be using Adobe Premiere Pro v.15, or DaVinci Resolve 17 studio for this.

[Bret Hampton]

Dino

You should be able to create 2048×1229 Premiere sequence. Drop your video into that and resize or reposition as necessary.

Make sure you setup audio for 5.1 in the sequence. You should be able to create discrete channels. Just follow one of the accepted channel orders such as LCRLsRsLfe, LRLsRsCLfe, etc.

Export Quicktime or Avid DnXHR [don’t change anything, keep sequence settings].

Make sure audio has all six channels in the export settings. Been awhile since I’ve done it but that should get you started.

Remember, 1.66 isn’t 1.85 or 1.78, stuff will get cut off. So you have framing decisions to make

[Dino Erkel]

Thanks, Bret.

Yes, the film was shot with a 1.66 ratio in mind, so that’s all good. Thanks for your advice. It took me a while but I finally figured out how to crop the output file in the render settings (as it’s the only setting that’s placed on the top left of the export panel). I think I’ll make it work from here.