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DVCPRO SD tape footage – 3×2 looks squished, needs to be “unwrapped” to 16×9?
I’m having trouble with some old SD footage. I’m pretty unfamiliar with working with footage from tapes — I have about 60 hours of DV/DVCPRO NTSC footage from tapes (mini DV tapes, I think?) from 2003. The problem I’m having is that the footage, which is 720×480, looks squashed. Not just in Final Cut Pro 7, but the source clips too also look squashed. It looks like it needs to be 16×9, and my guess is that the pixel aspect ratio needs to be changed to do this. Current pixel aspect is NTSC-CCIR 601.
What I’m trying to figure out is, is there a trick to “unwrapping” this footage so it is the proper 16×9? A program I should download, or special settings in Compressor? What is the specific problem with the clip that I should change? This is a totally new problem for me — I’ve never dealt with footage that doesn’t look the way it’s supposed to straight from the drive.
Thank you for your time, your help is much appreciated!
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4 Replies
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it’s anamorphic.
in the log & capture window there’s a button for it somewhere (been a long time since i used SD tape)
this tells the footage how to behave in FCP, and it will display in correctly in the viewer.
if you’ve captured it already, you need to find the anamorphic column in the browser.
select the clips, and right click in the anamorphic column and chose “yes”
doing it in the Log & Capture window is better
you need to choose one of the anamorphic sequence pre-sets, too, then your canvas will display correctly.BUT
while the clips will now look right in FCP, the files will still look squished in the finder,
and you will need to set your external monitor to the correct zoom settings.
exports can also apear squished.nick
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Yes, using the anamorphic 16×9 setting under sequence settings has helped with viewing the footage in FCP 7… but don’t I need to convert something in the footage so that the exports will look correct? That would be the most important thing, that exports for screenings look correct and not squashed. Thanks for your input!
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Nope. Just flag it anamorphic.
What is your deliverable? If SD tape at 16:9, then it’ll be squished again, as there is no NTSC 16:9 SD format…only PAL land had that. It’ll broadcast 16:9…but look squished on the tape.
If you export a QT file, then the file dimensions you export should be 16:9, if this is intended for the web, or DVD. But again, it is all based on what you are required to deliver.
Shane
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Even in PAL it is delivered squished (anamorphic).
If you need to output a file for viewing on a computer that doesn’t look squished then in PAL it is 1024 x 576. In NTSC I think it is 854 x 480 but basically get out the calculator, and work out what the square pixel equivalent is in 16:9 and set that in Compressor to make web files.
Take the vertical resolution 480, 576, 720 whatever and mulitply by 16 then divide by 9 and thats the horizontal pixels in square.
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