Title Safe 4×3 Lines For HD 16×9 Display

[Tom Wolsky]

There is in FCP7.

All the best,

Tom

Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP7,” “Basic Training for FCS” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 4 Editing Workshop”

[Mark Fanjoy]

Thanks, Tom. Since I haven’t seen a reason at my level of editing to justify upgrading, do you have a customized work-around idea? I’m thinking build the bars in Photoshop and output an overlay reference file to drop into a layer when adding graphics, then remove it when satisfied. Make sense? Or are there plugins out there that already provide a filter for this?

Thanks again.

Wherever I am…I’m lost!

[Tom Wolsky]

You could do that. There might be third party generators for this if you want to try google.

All the best,

Tom

Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP7,” “Basic Training for FCS” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 4 Editing Workshop”

[Andy Mees]

Some safe guides here: https://web.me.com/andymees … the fabulous Digital Heaven also sell their WideSafe plugin, and coming soon there’s the eyeHeight compliance plug which will include safe guides.

[Mark Fanjoy]

Outstanding, Andy! Thank you. And thanks for your generosity in supplying the plugins. Very cool of you!

My next task is down-converting the 16×9 to a 4×3 output format. But I need to crop left and right instead of letterbox format (basically full screen without video stretch).

Searching threads now, but only finding instructions on converting with letterbox format.

Any ideas and direction is appreciated.

Wherever I am…I’m lost!

[Adam Smith]

For a Center-Punch downconvert:

Drop your HD original into Compressor and dial in your settings as normal, but on the 5th tab “Geometry”, you want something like

Source Inset
Crop to: 4×3 1.33:1

Dimensions
Frame Size: 720×480
Pixel Aspect: NTSC CCIR 601/DV

This will crop your footage on the sides, resulting in a full-screen standard-definition movie.

Note that I’ve seen people recommend that you downconvert first to a production-worthy codec (ProRes), and then use that new standard-def movie as the source for MPEG compression. I do this when I have time or the final output is important, but I’ve not heavily tested the differences.

– – –
Video Photographer / Avid & Final Cut Editor

[Tom Wolsky]

To be honest I would much rather do this inside an SD sequence putting the editing HD material in it and resize. This will give you much better control and fine adjustment of the framing than simply cropping it in the compression app.

All the best,

Tom

Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP7,” “Basic Training for FCS” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 4 Editing Workshop”

[Mark Fanjoy]

Adam, thanks for the tip. It worked great. Now I can at least output samples of my edit and view the “look” to see how I’m doing with graphics, and some video left/right shifting.

Tom, if I may, I’d like to try your direction too. I’ve created a 4×3 sequence setting and dropped my edited 16×9 sequence video into that sequence. It formats the video in proportion great, but it creates a letterbox effect, which is what I’m trying to avoid.

Is there a sequence setting I’m missing that will adjust the video to true 4×3 full framing?

Thanks.

Wherever I am…I’m lost!

[Tom Wolsky]

There is no sequence setting for this. You have to adjust it by hand. I wouldn’t do a nested sequence as it make individual shot adjustments difficult. I’d edit the contents of the sequence into the 4:3 timeline, adjust one clip and use copy and paste attributes to adjust the others. Then I can manually tweak the framing and position of each shot. Of course with HD material going to SD you have a lot of wiggle room.

All the best,

Tom

Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP7,” “Basic Training for FCS” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 4 Editing Workshop”

[Mark Fanjoy]

Okay, that’s exactly what I was just sitting here tinkering with until I learned if there was a setting. Even though it’s a lot of manual adjusting, I like staying within FC to the final look and then output as it is.

Thank you very much for your support, Tom. Appreciated.

Wherever I am…I’m lost!