Export with Letterbox

[Jeff Carpenter]

Change the easy-setup settings to something that’s 4×3. Let’s say DV-NTSC for example. Then create a new sequence in your project.

Then drag your orginal widescreen sequence onto that new timeline. It should automatically letterbox itself since Final Cut knows it’s a widescreen sequence.

Then simply export from there as the web-settings you’ve chosen.

[Captain Mench]

You could also change the SIZE of the export to 320×180… that will “unsqueeze” it.

CaptM

[Kevin Ham]

Cool. I want to keep the same frame rate of 23.98 so hopefully that won’t be a problem when selecting a 4×3 format.

Thanks!

[Kevin Ham]

Not sure that will give me exactly what I want. A 320×240 letterbox image. I can give it a try.

[Jeff Carpenter]

I’m pretty sure there’s an easy-setup with that framerate. If not, you can create your own preset to use. You should try to make everything but the frame size match the current settigns you are using so that nothing else has to be rendered or changed.

[Kevin Ham]

Sounds like a good plan. Thanks.

[Captain Mench]

Only reason I suggested was you that you said you wanted to see the whole video instead of it looking squished.

I assumed you were working with anamorphic material and yes, it will look squished if you don’t set the SIZE to a 16:9 ratio.

CaptM

[Jeff Carpenter]

It will look fine letterboxed in a 4×3 shape.

Although pure widescreen is great, he might not have any choice. Youtube, for example, conforms all videos to a 320×240 space. I imagine lots of other web sites and mobile-devices do the same. If you’re putting video on cell-phones or web pages you yourself do not control, going letterboxed is still the safest way.

[Captain Mench]

Ah — point!

Thanks.

CaptM

[Kevin Ham]

Yeah this is going on Youtube and I saw their specs of 320×240 so that is why I want to create the letterbox to maintain the true image size.