HDV Settings for Wide Screen Output

[Lucy Moon]

Hello.

Not sure I know why you are seeing letterboxing, but I have had success making an PAL SD anamorphic sequence from an HDV sequence.

I assume you’ve a nice native HDV sequence, with no letterboxing showing in the Canvas?

From there, I would create a new sequence with ‘DV PAL 48khz Anamprphic’ (from ‘Load sequence preset’ options) and I nested the HDV sequence inside it.

It takes a lifetime to render before playing out to video, but it looked good once rendered.

BTW, I first tried Compressor to downres the HDV but didn’t like the quality of the file from the Compressor preset.

Does that help?

Cheers
~Astrid

[Dean Longfield]

Thanks Astrid. I’m in New York and am working with NTSC footage.

Yes I do have a nice native HDV sequence, with no letterboxing showing in the Canvas

OK I tried the DV NTSC 48khz Anamorphic in Sequence Settings (Command + 0 [zero] ).
This letterboxed the Canvas, and the monitors both remained letterboxed.

Sequence Settings are:
Frame Size: HD 1440 X 1080 16:9
Pixel Aspect Ratio: HD 1440 X 1080

Audio/Video Settings are:
Sequence Preset: HDV 1080i60
Capture Prest: HDV
Device Control Preset Firewire NTSC (720×480)

I should note here that when I bring an SD widescreen project into the timeline, everything works as it should: (16:9 monitor has a full 16:9 image and 4:3 monitor is stretched), with DV NTSC 48khz settings.

Any further suggestions are appreciated.

Thanks,
DL

[Lucy Moon]

Hiya Dean in New York,

Yowser, not sure how that is happening. Worked for me, as they say. 🙂

Another approach is – if you’ve the disk space for a big file export…

– Export your lovely HDV sequence as HDV (if you haven’t already)
– Open Compressor, and add your HDV file
– Use the preset ‘SD 8-bit Uncompressed NTSC’
– Pull this new file into FCP
– Where it is listed in the Browser window, put a tick in the ‘anamorphic’ column
– Make a new empty sequence
– Drag the new file into it, letting FCP set the sequence settings

…. and hopefully a ta-da widescreen SD sequence shows in the canvas?

If so you can print to video, nicely.

HTH!

[Dean Longfield]

Thanks for your response Astrid.

I should clarify a bit. In the Canvas I have a wide screen project, formatted correctly.
So what’s the problem? My Mac is firewire out to a Sony DSR-11 (DVCAM) VTR. From
the DSR-11, I output the signal to monitors as follows: S-Video out to a widescreen monitor and
Composite out to a 4:3 monitor. It should be noted that anytime I have an SD widescreen project in FCP, the widescreen monitor reads the signal as widescreen and the image fills the external widescreen monitor as it should. The external 4:3 monitor reads the signal as widescreen and the image is stretched as it should be, because it’s a widescreen project, (in a 4:3 monitor).

However, with the HDV footage, I again get the FCP Canvas window formatted correctly (16:9 image – not letterboxed), but the external monitors getting the signal from the Sony DSR-11 are outputting a letterboxed image.

My question is where in the signal’s path is this image getting letterboxed and how can I correct it?

I assumed the problem may have originated in my settings….. which settings I’m not sure.
Have tried changing the audio / video settings and the sequence settings but continually get the same result. I checked the Distort settings and that’s not it either. Also regardless of whether I check anamorphic, or not check anamorphic, in the Sequence Settings, I get the same result.

So to give you a visual to clarify the problem: my external widescreen monitor is getting a letterboxed signal, (from the Sony DSR-11), and thus letterboxing the image in a widescreen monitor so that the picture looks more like a 70mm film . – The 4:3 monitor is also receiving a letterboxed image from the
Sony DSR-11 and is letterboxing it.

What I’m trying to do is record a pure widescreen image (not a letterboxed one) out to tape via an SD
signal, (that originated as an HDV signal in FCP).

FCP: 7.03
Mac: 10.6.4 Snow Leapord

Thanks very much for your kind assistance, knowledge and time !!