[Adam Schoales]

No that’s really good.

I’m currently trying to convert an HDTV rip someone posted online in .mpg to h264 and wanted to try and use similar settings to the apple trailers.

[Adam Schoales]

Okay so I lied… the method I mentioned before results in an incorrect aspect ratio and a green line at the bottom of the screen. However Tom was correct. Open the file in quicktime 7, hit cmd+j, click the presentation tab, change “conform aperture” to classic (its probably set to production). then proceed as before (video track, visual settings, scaled size = 853×480).

its that presentation mode the screws stuff up. which i think is new in SL.

Hopefully apple will make a knowledge base article.

[Adam Schoales]

I solved my problem, but jebus was it stupid.

Here’s what you have to do (currently – who knows apple may actually fix this in the future but seeing as both iDVD and DVD SP haven’t been updated in a few years I’m not holding my breath). Again, not sure if this was a Snow Leopard or FCP 7 issue but here’s what you need to do.

Edit your entire sequence as you normally would. Make sure your editing in anamorphic 16:9 mode.

Once you’re finished editing your sequence save it, and dupe your sequence just to be safe. Go to sequence settings and uncheck the anamorphic 16:9 box. Your sequence will now be stretched to fit the 4:3 frame.

Export this as you normally would (export>quicktime movie). I didn’t do a self contained file – not sure if this makes a difference. Will do a test tomorrow to double check.

Open that file in Quicktime (7 NOT quicktime x since X removed all the useful features in quicktime). Show movie properties (cmd+j) and click “Video Track” and then visual settings. Uncheck “Preserve aspect ratio” and change to 853×480 (if your using Snow Leopard you’ll notice “Scaled Size” and the values by default are 0x0 – this is normal, and what you want to change). Hit enter, close the properties, save the video. You’ll notice it will now have stretched your image to be a 16:9 image and things will not look funny anymore.

Bring that file into iDVD and you’re set.

Like I said, dont know WHY this is now an issue, it never was before, but I know that when I opened the video exported from the anamorphic sequence in quicktime everything displayed nicely – which it hadn’t done in the past (the anamorphic flag was set for things like compressor but quicktime always showed it as a 4:3 movie). Something changed along the way and iDVD must be getting confused. Where that changed happened (be it FCP 7 or Snow leopard) im not sure. hopefully the issue will be sorted out though.

[Adam Schoales]

sorry you’ll have to forgive me, what is “classic” presentation mode? are you running snow leopard? quicktime 7 or quicktime x?

[Adam Schoales]

yes i told it to do a 16×9 project and yes i know it doesn’t “technically” support anamorphic. however as I mentioned I went through the usual steps of changing the scaled size but that didn’t seem to make a difference…

again i have a feeling this is due to FCP 7 or Snow Leopard.

[Adam Schoales]

one more thing:

since I dont have an HD TV and really dont care that much about HD anyways I’m likely going to go down to 720 rather than 1080 (it will also save me lots of space). just curious though: 720p30 vs 720p60? What should I use? Does it REALLY matter? is it better to just go with 60 cause its higher, or is there a certain situation where one is better than the other?

thanks!

[Adam Schoales]

Hi Caspian!

Thanks so much for your response. It’s really great to have a response from someone who has actually USED the devices I’m working with and can give pros and cons than someone who just says “HD is better. duh!”.

I shot this dance show on the weekend and was surprised by how smoothly things went. The lowlight wasn’t TOO much of an issue (and I presume any noise i see will be heavily reduced when we go back down to SD for the DVD). The storage space is a bit of a pain, especially when you consider that 8gb is going to be even BIGGER once I bring it into final cut, but since, again, im going down to SD in the end anyways i’ll likely convert those pro-res to DV and just work from those. I was only shooting in HD to get the best native quality to work with.

I was also surprised at how good the “manual” focus on this little low end camcorder was. looked pretty good! all in all I think im quite happy and will keep my camera. i can always borrow my friends cameras for what little miniDV stuff I still need.

if only there was native support for AVCHD in FCP instead of this pro-res stuff… I’m a poor student and as cheap as harddrives are its 150 bucks i should be spending on food. that said, hopefully the FCP 7 codecs will help.

So thanks for your tips. I’ll let you know how smoothly this edit goes!

[Adam Schoales]

whoops! meant MiniDV NOT miniDVD. i hate those things haha

[Adam Schoales]

So where do I do this first re-encode for pro-res? should I do this using compressor or final cut or something? Again I’m still very new to this (usually I just used something like visual hub to re-encode my videos for the iPod) so I need a little more help than others…

[Adam Schoales]

Solved it, i think. It was a bad photoshop file. Took it out and so far all clear.