Creative Communities of the World Forums

The peer to peer support community for media production professionals.

Activity Forums Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy I Have Tried EVERYTHING and Still CANNOT get a 16×9 video out of FCP2

  • I Have Tried EVERYTHING and Still CANNOT get a 16×9 video out of FCP2

    Posted by Jon Casey on March 26, 2009 at 10:58 pm

    Hey guys,

    I literally have tried every option I could think of. I’ve looked at many different forums, and have even used my old version, FCP 5.1, which worked fine for turning out 16×9 videos. But I cannot get a 16×9 video out of FCP 6 for some reason. It keeps giving me 4×3!! No matter what I tell it to do!!

    I’ve tried messing with the pixel aspect ratios, different 16×9 sizes/measurements, different 16×9 settings (which happen to be HD, which all by the way shrink way down when I choose them). I’ve tried anamorphicizer, which made no difference.

    I even thought I had managed to figure it out last night when I tried capturing some new footage and chose the anamorphic capture setting, which seemed to work as it had black bars on top… but nope!! I’m really getting frustrated here!!! Can anyone give me some pointers that you think I haven’t tried!??

    By the way- Compressor hasn’t worked for me… and regular quicktime movie hasn’t worked for me. And pretty much everything else I’ve tried hasn’t worked for me, as well.

    Help me get out of the 4×3 realm and back into the 16×9!!

    Thanks!

    Alan Okey replied 17 years, 5 months ago 5 Members · 9 Replies
  • 9 Replies
  • Michael Gissing

    March 26, 2009 at 11:36 pm

    SD or HD? Is Anamorphic ticked in your sequence settings? How are you getting out of FCS2 – SDI to tape or Quicktime movie?

    What are you pixel settings on the quicktime conversion? How are you monitoring? Although you say you have tried everything, you give us almost no information to guess what you are doing.

  • Jon Casey

    March 26, 2009 at 11:56 pm

    It’s a Panasonic DVX SD. Anamorphic is in fact ticked in sequence settings. Quicktime movie, which I said I tried- but yes, quicktime movie is what I need. Pixel settings are H.264, 1500 kbs, 24fps, Dimensions are usually 720×640, which I have tried and tried again, but it keeps giving me a 4×3 frame, even in the preview frame. It will not give me 16×9.

  • Alan Okey

    March 27, 2009 at 1:17 am

    [Jon Casey] “Dimensions are usually 720×640, which I have tried and tried again, but it keeps giving me a 4×3 frame, even in the preview frame. It will not give me 16×9.”

    An anamorphic DV clip (your source material) is 720×480. To export an h.264 Quicktime movie with a 16:9 aspect ratio, specify dimensions of 640×360, square pixels.

  • Jon Casey

    March 27, 2009 at 2:07 am

    Oh yeah, I meant 480. And I’ll try that later. Thanks for the input.

  • Jon Casey

    March 27, 2009 at 7:12 am

    So I tried those exact specs Alan, and it still came out pillarbox…

  • Chris Poisson

    March 27, 2009 at 3:24 pm

    If your output is to DVD, DVDSP will stretch your movie to 16×9, you just need to select that format in the inspector when the track is selected.

    Have a wonderful day.

  • Chris Borjis

    March 27, 2009 at 4:22 pm

    If your getting pillar boxed then there is something wrong going on.

    I will tell you that I have found the anamorphic check boxes to
    cause trouble in fcp 6.01

    thats why an anamorphic project will not have ANY anamorphic
    buttons checked on the sequence or anywere. JUST THE CLIPS
    are checked as anamorphic. And its not good
    enough to just check them in the bins. You have to actually
    remove them from the time line and replace them. (at least thats what I found)

    I push the 16:9 button on my broadcast monitor to see it properly
    to the end.

    the reason I do this is, I ran into some very odd problems like
    you are having. but with random clips pillarboxing for no apparent
    reason. The workaround is to do what I explained above.

    You may even have to do a new sequence if the pillarboxing
    does not go away after doing all the above. I know this is a weird one…

    from there you should be able to use a quicktime export to
    convert it into 640×360 for viewing.

  • Jon Casey

    April 3, 2009 at 5:03 pm

    Hey Alan, so I tried to export a quicktime h.264 short again and did what you asked. But were you talking about in compressor or just in good ole quicktime conversion? I did it in quicktime conversion specified those dimensions (custom-640×360), had clicked square in the timeline sequence settings, and ticked preserve aspect ratio. But still came out with a pillar box movie.

  • Alan Okey

    April 3, 2009 at 5:11 pm

    DO NOT tick “preserve aspect ratio.” That’s why you’re getting pillarboxing.

We use anonymous cookies to give you the best experience we can.
Our Privacy policy | GDPR Policy