displaying Quicktimes with correct 16:9 ratio

[Chris Borjis]

check your aperture setting in the preferences, that will make it do what you want.

[Paul Nevison]

hey Boris

which prefs are you talking about? QT player or the clip prefs (apple-J) once the movie is loaded into QT player

I couldn’t find an “aperture” setting in either of the above mentioned prefs.

thanks

Macpro Duel core 3Ghz
4.0G RAM
OS 10.4.10
QT 7.2
FCP 6.0.1
AE CS3
BMD Decklink HD Extreme 6.6
PAL Land

[Kevin Hamm]

No, the aperture settings in the Sequence Settings for the video. If you choose the Anamorphic checkbox to be checked, your video will export, and therefore will play, correctly.

[Paul Nevison]

ok so call me stupid….but where would I find the ‘aperture’ settings.

both my FCP and AE projects are set up for anamorphic and the footage itself is 16:9

it’s when i export from either FCP or AE and then open those Quicktimes in QT player that it interprets them as 4:3.

thanks

Macpro Duel core 3Ghz
4.0G RAM
OS 10.4.10
QT 7.2
FCP 6.0.1
AE CS3
BMD Decklink HD Extreme 6.6
PAL Land

[Kevin Hamm]

Nope, i won’t call you stupid. I’ve done much worse than this, so don’t worry about it.

Open your final cut pro project

In the Browser, choose the sequence that is supposed to be 16:9 and then right-click or control-click on it with your mouse, and choose “Settings”

In the window that pops up, you’ll find five tabs, with the left most tab active. In that panel you’ll see a drop down for “pixel aspect ratio” which should be NTSC or NTSC CCR blah blah blah.

Right to the right of that is a checkbox for “Anamorphic 16:9” – check that. Voila!

Export the Quicktime and you should be good to go, unless you use a 4:3 ratio preset in compressor, but that’s another issue entirely.

[Paul Nevison]

Hey Kevin,

Yes I always have that box checked when working in 16:9….that’s not the problem (using anamorphic easy set ups also make it pretty idiot proof as well) . the issue arises from the subsequent QT movies created when exporting as a self contained movie using the current settings option from a 16:9 sequence.

it is easy enough to change the interpretation of clips in FCP or AE via the settings or interpret footage dialogues, it is when i open those QT movies in QT player that they are interpreted by default as 4:3 and it is there that it’s difficult to see where to change that preference.

scouring the QT menus has come up blank so far.

this is a problem I’ve noticed ever since I’ve been using macs…and it was just now that i decided to ask the cow if there was a solution to this.

you get the same problems if you import 16:9 QT from FCP into idvd….they get interpreted as 4:3.

thanks

Macpro Duel core 3Ghz
4.0G RAM
OS 10.4.10
QT 7.2
FCP 6.0.1
AE CS3
BMD Decklink HD Extreme 6.6
PAL Land

[Kevin Hamm]

[paul nevison] “you get the same problems if you import 16:9 QT from FCP into idvd….they get interpreted as 4:3. “

Aha, a clue.

When you are exporting your Quicktimes, which export option are you using? This is an important piece to the puzzle.

Now, back to where I pointed out the Anamorphic checkbox. Look again at the settings panel for the sequence and notice right above that checkbox there is the frame size setting – which doesn’t change when you click the anamorphic option. Why? Hold that question, it gets better.

When you import the quicktime file into iDVD or DVD Studio Pro you noticed that they get interpreted as 4:3, and now that you’ve just reviewed the frame size of your sequence, which is the source of the quicktime that you opened in iDVD, it’s obvious that it is interpreting it as a 4:3 video because, actually, it is.

This is where a bit of knowledge about the DVD spec and the convoluted mess it created actually did work as expected from the get go. The original DVD spec allowed for video up to 720×480 pixels, no more. So if a movie is going to be “widescreen” it’s actually got to give up some of the pixels to create the black bands on the top and bottom of the television screen so that it can view right. In other words, when you get a DVD movie and it’s widescreen, you aren’t getting a true anamorphic image, you’re getting two bars of black and the video in the middle as a sandwich.

Which then brings me back to how are you exporting the movie. Just exporting the Quicktime movie and making it self-contained will leave you with the 4:3-with-black-bars-to-pretend-it’s-16:9-fakery that is causing your headache.

However, if you export using Compressor or Quicktime Conversion, you can choose to export the Anamorphic sizes correctly and not have the black bars AND have the QT Player open the file right the first time.

So, I’m guessing you use Export>Quicktime Movie and just make it self contained. Am I right?

[Paul Nevison]

Hi Kevin,

yes Export>Quicktime Movie is how i usually export out of FCP, as noted this isn’t a problem when going to another pro app, as you can correctly interpret the footage there.

I just tried exporting via quicktime conversion and again messing with the various 16:9 options and still i get a 4:3 QT.

I’m obviously still not finding the correct menu to make this work!

Macpro Duel core 3Ghz
4.0G RAM
OS 10.4.10
QT 7.2
FCP 6.0.1
AE CS3
BMD Decklink HD Extreme 6.6
PAL Land

[Kevin Hamm]

[paul nevison] “I just tried exporting via quicktime conversion and again messing with the various 16:9 options and still i get a 4:3 QT. “

I just tested my theory on this, and it worked fine for me, so I’ll walk you through it. Sorry that this has gone on so long, i’m usually not this braindead.

From Final Cut, you make sure your sequence is either selected in the browser or active in the timeline.

From the menu bar, choose Export>Quicktime Conversion.

In the dialog box that pops up, click the Options Button. This should give you the view where you see the pixel count and size for the video. In this case, since the only change I made to the sequence was checking the Anamorphic 16:9 box in the settings dialog, I see that my output quicktime movie will be 477×268 pixels.

Well that works, but there are more options. You can, at least in FCP 6, click on the size button of the movie settings panel and change to full-sized NTSC 16:9 – but you have to check the box down below to preserve the pixel aspect ratio and then choose how you want to do it – you can letterbox it, or crop it. either way. cropping, however, will get you back to where you were before.

Try that, and if you are still having problems, perhaps I can get a copy of your output file so I can see just what you’re making.

[Paul Nevison]

Hey Kevin,

those are the exact procedures I have pretty much always followed….and for some reason my QT’s are ending up as 4:3. I’m working with PAL footage….is there a bug with 720×576 footage perhaps?

Macpro Duel core 3Ghz
4.0G RAM
OS 10.4.10
QT 7.2
FCP 6.0.1
AE CS3
BMD Decklink HD Extreme 6.6
PAL Land