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Making regular footage anamorphic
I have a uncompressed 4:3 sequence that I need to give an anamoprhic stretch. Some of the footage is letterboxed and some of it is fullscreen. What the easiest way to achieve this while not losing any of the image or degrading the quality too much. The destination is an MPEG2 file so if there’s a way to do it via compressor or sorenson that would work too.
Thanks
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7 Replies
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Why do you want to do this? Making a 4×3 sequence anamorphic will distort the picture… Everyone will look shorter and fatter…
-Simmie
2 G5 – Kona LH
3 G4s – Cinewave
1 xbox360, 1 PSP, 1 PS2 & a Gamecube
https://www.speak.co.uk -
I don’t know the specifics but the footage is apparently going over a video feed of some type. They requested a full frame anamorpihc mpeg2 for thier delivery format. I assume they are unsqueezing it via thier broadcast.
i know it’s a rather unusual formatting choice which is why I don’t know how ot do it off-hand.
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Are you saying that you have a 4:3 sequence and your broadcast outlet wants it 16:9 anamorphic? If you had the option, seems like you should have started with a 16:9 anamorphic sequence. Your 16:9 sources would drop right in full screen and your 4:3 sources would either go in with pillarboxes or scale up to fill with loss of top and bottom.
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All of the soruce footage was either stills or 4:3. In order to avoid having to render constantly I made an edit I simply edited in a 4:3 sequence.
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[Peterd] “They requested a full frame anamorpihc mpeg2 for thier delivery format. I assume they are unsqueezing it via thier broadcast.”
Did they say Full Height Anamorphic? 16×9 FHA is full widescreen. They probably won’t be unsqueezing anything. I think you’ll need to pillarbox your footage on a 16×9 Anamorphic timeline to create a distortion free sequence.
-Simmie
2 G5 – Kona LH
3 G4s – Cinewave
1 xbox360, 1 PSP, 1 PS2 & a Gamecube
https://www.speak.co.uk -
If the broadcaster clearly understands that you have edited a 4×3 programme when their spec is for 16×9 FHA (something that would worry me) then you simply need to drop your finished 4×3 sequence (I prefer export to quicktime rather than nesting) into a new 16×9 timeline – just open a new sequence, select the sequence properties and check the anamorphic box.
When you drag your 4×3 original into the new sequence (which will have a widescreen shape to it in FCP) and it will import with black bars either side of the picture. If you then export this via compressor, into the requested mpeg2, it will be anamorphic, since the frame pixel count has not altered, just the pixel shape.
Most broadcasters we work with demand 16×9 material however, using the full frame, with 4×3 footage zoomed or pan/scanned to fit. I would check their full requirements – apologies if you have already been through this process. Also note that many broadcasters request 16×9 FHA masters, with all gfx within 4×3 or 14×9 safe zones, for viewers who are watching on 4×3 tv’s – but this could just be a UK requirement for all I know.
Ben
Editec Broadcast Editing Ltd
EVS & FCP specialists for live broadcast.
OB Server 1 HD – Mobile FCP editing done right.
https://www.editecuk.com/OBServer2.html -
OK, that makes perfect sense. Ben’s post has answered your question very well.
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