involuntary random letterboxing

[David Roth weiss]

Ususally means that you didn’t start the project with the proper Easy Setup, or didn’t open that sequence originally with the proper seq. settings, but later changed the settings manually. So, FCP is setting the distort attribute in the Motion Tab to compensate in order to make your make your media match the improper original settings.

If you haven’t used the distort on anything you can simply select all and remove the distort attribute on all clips when you paste them in.

Since we cannot be absolutely certain what your precise mistake was in setting up the project or the sequence there is no way to be certain exactly what method to use to keep this from happening. However, you might try to open a new sequence, allow FCP to set the sequence settings automatically by dropping a single clip of HDV into the timeline and answering “yes” when asked if you want the settings to match the clip. Then test that sequence to see if it distorts material copied from another sequence as you present seq. does, of if behaves differently. Obviously, if it work without changing the distort parameter you can make that sequence your new master sequence. If it doesn’t work at least you tried…

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

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[Tom Landon]

Thanks: I think you are right: I started editing before I knew what I was doing in terms of setup, and I think now, a year later, I’m paying for my ignorance, but I think I found a workaround – I’m exporting each segment as a quicktime file and bringing it back into a new sequence, which hopefully will solve my problem, and should also make my file sizes more manageable for DVD authorint. Thanks for the quick response.

Tom Landon
Lucky Dog Productions
Roanoke, VA