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Still images distorted when imported 4:3 FCE project into 16:9 FCP
7 years ago I created a 4:3 aspect ratio documentary style piece using 16mm archival footage and still images animated in the Ken Burns mode for a museum client for replay on a 4:3 CRT monitor.
The museum has upgraded to a widescreen flat panel and I am re-editing the piece in 16:9 aspect ratio.
I have imported the FCE2 project into 4:3 aspect ratio FCP6 sequence largely without incident and the animation settings have been respected which is very pleasing.To start work on the widescreen version I created an empty 16:9 sequence and copied and pasted the entire contents of the 4:3 timeline.
For the video footage this has worked as one would hope with 4:3 aspect ratio clips sitting pillar-boxed inside the 16:9 frame allowing me to either scale them up or layer a still or motion background underneath in order to fill the wider display.
However all the still images are stretched horizontally by the amount that a 16:9 frame is wider than a 4:3 frame. It is as if the pixel aspect ratio has been reset Curiously in both the 4:3 and 16:9 sequences, in the motion tab, they have the odd aspect ratio of 6.67 and it is by no means obvious to what aspect ratio they should be reset so as not to be distorted.
There are only 3 dozen or so images to which the Ken Burns effect has been applied so it is not out of the question to drop the images again into the 16:9 timeline and reanimate them by hand to match the original edit – but perhaps there is a more intelligent approach or workflow that will save me a days work.
Thanks,
Mike
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7 Replies
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Hi Mike,
Not sure if this is your issue, but I found this happened to me a few times.
Double click on an image, go to the motion tab and expand the distort box. Check and see if the aspect ratio has been changed. I ran into this when I transitioned from a SD DV timeline to a HD Prores timeline.
Hope that helps.
Mark
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Actually, it’s the distort parameter, which should be set to “0”
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.comPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums. Formerly host of the Apple Final Cut Basics, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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Thanks Mark,
The aspect ratio is unchanged from 6.67
Thanks David,
If by “distort parameter” you mean the aspect ratio slider that is unchanged at 6.67 as mentioned above.
Decreasing it to zero as suggested makes the still image wider and more slightly more distorted. By eye, it needs to be increased to between 40 to 50 to look normal. Strange that it is so non-linear.
Cheers,
Mike
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That doesn’t sound right. Just use the remove attributes feature, check “Distort” and hit okay.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.comPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums. Formerly host of the Apple Final Cut Basics, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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Hi David,
Thanks for the reminder about removing attributes. Unfortunately the practical impact of right-clicking and removing the “distort” attribute is to reset the aspect ratio slider to zero which again stretches the images even further in the horizontal direction.
Cheers,
Mike
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That indicates that a mistake was made somewhere along the line. Without having at least one of the images in hand to investigate it’s very tough to determine where the problem lays. If you want to send one to me snoop around a bit and find my email address. (hint: any name @ my website
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.comPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums. Formerly host of the Apple Final Cut Basics, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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Thanks for being so generous with your time David.
I don’t believe there is anything inherently wrong with the images themselves, they look fine in preview.app and in the 4:3 sequence. I should note however that they are all 72dpi TIFF’s, downsized in PS from the original 300dpi TIFF’s supplied by the museum because I read somewhere years ago that one shouldn’t use massively oversampled images for Ken Burns style rostrum animation (in FCE anyway) because of moire effects -that may not be an issue in FCP, particularly if I “send to Motion”.
As an experiment I have reimported a small selection of TIFF’s into the browser and when I drop them onto a video track above the stretched images I note in the Motion tab that they have been interpreted as having an aspect ratio of 42.22 and have no distortion.
By adjusting the aspect ratio of the original images in the track underneath to 42.22 I can eliminate the distortion and the Basic Motion attributes from the 2003 edit are retained which gives me a good starting point for animating them within the new wider frame.
I have no idea where these odd aspect ratio numbers are coming from, perhaps in the fullness of time someone will shed some light, but I can now start the job proper.
Thanks again for paying attention to this issue for me,
All the best,
Mike
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