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Question About Dimensions Settings
Hi there,
I have a quick question that has been bugging me for some time.
I have a 640×480 piece of video footage, which I import into FCP, into the Timeline. I change the settings of the Timeline from whatever the default dimensions were, to 640×480 pixels. The video footage doesn’t actually take up the whole space. The width is smaller than what it’s supposed to be (600×480 in fact), leaving black bars on either side of the footage.
I’ve tried it with also a 640×480 image, yielding the same results.Could someone please tell me what I’m doing wrong? Thanks in advance.
Spence
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3 Replies
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Hi there.
What is your destination? Do you plan to render the movie and play it out of firewire onto DV tape? Or export a standard DV NTSC movie file? If so, then I recommend that you keep the sequence at default DV NTSC settings (720×480), and instead fit the 640×480 movie into the sequence. Some versions of final cut will correctly cut 640×480 square right into 720×480 non-square with no scale/aspect adjustment needed. But if the 640×480 movie does not cut into the 720×480 sequence full frame – you still get the black bars you mention — then simply double-click the clip already in the sequence to open it in the viewer, go to the motion tab, and adjust the scale and distort values in an exact relationship — ie, if scale is +12.5, then distort aspect should be -12.5. Adjust until the image fits exactly. Then you can apply these same motion tab attributes to the clip in the bin, and continue editing with this clip from the bin.
HOWEVER, perhaps you need a 640×480 movie? Is it for the web? Then there are two possibilities here.
1. One is that your Quicktime movie not actually 640×480. Newer versions of Quicktime sometimes “correct” for non-square pixels and report the dimensions of a 720×480 video as the way it displays at 640×480. So all you have to do is check the dimensions in Final Cut instead of Quicktime. To do this, select the clip and choose “Item Properties” (or hit Apple-9). In there you will see the actual dimensions of the video.
2. It is, in fact, 640×480. In this case, though you have fixed the dimensions of the sequence to match 640×480, there are still a couple of settings you need to change. Select the sequence and choose “Sequence Settings” (or hit Apple-Zero). You need to change the pixel aspect to 4:3 / SQUARE, and make sure that anamorphic is NOT selected. Then re-edit your clip into the timeline, and now it should fit just right.
Cheers. Let me know!
“THE LOST SKELETON OF CADAVRA” –
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Hey Bill,
I’d like to start off by thanking you for helping me out. I followed what you told me exactly, and now I’m right as rain!
My video is indeed for the web, so I followed your instructions relating to that. I didn’t think you needed to re-edit the clip into the Timeline for settings to take effect. But now I know!
Again, thanks for taking the time out to read my post. As a complete newbie at FCP, your help is greatly appreciated.
Spence
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