[David Bertman]

Hey all-

I have asked this before and have gotten some responses, but none have done exactly what I’m looking for, so I will re-ask:

Anyone know of a filter or method for stretching a 4:3 image logarithmically. to fill a 16:9 aspect ratio. I don’t mean just stretching the corners, as then the subjects get short and fat equally. What many 16:9 TVs have is a mode that leaves the majority of the center alone (where most of the action takes place), then slowly stretches the sides out. (Obviously there is distortion or blur at the sides, but generally it seems to work well).

I have seen some filters that try to do it, but most have limitations (either you can clearly see where the non-stretched image and the stretched area cover — there a blurry line in the frame. Or there’s no way to adjust exactly where the non-stretched “sweet spot” is.

Any one have any solutions to this?

[David Bertman]

Hi Martin–

I tried the “Too Much Too Soon Free Plugins” filters. The smart strech does do what it says, the big issue with it, is it has a very noticable line where the streching occurs. It’s not a gradual stretch. In other words if you have a close up of a person, the center part of the screen is great. Unstretched. However, there’s a soft fuzzy line about 2/3 of the way into the screen where suddenly it is completely stretched from there to the edge of the picture. Obvioulsy when the person (or camera) moves you can quite clearly see where the line is.

In effect, it kind of looks like what would happen if I took a 4×3 image on V2, did a soft crop of a few inches off the sides. Then on V1, took the same image and stretched it to fill a 16×9 frame. Then, matched where the soft crop line was.

I looked to see if I could either make the line softer (and less noticable) or even change where the “line” was. Unfortunately, it was a no on both counts… In fact, there are no user customizable options at all with the filter

Any other suggestions?

Thanks,

Dave

[David Bertman]

Hi Jeremy-

That was one of my initial assumptiosn up front. It wouldnt explain why some clips would be in dead sync surrounded by clips that were 20 frames off….

But to get around that thought, I copied all my media to a GSpeed Raid with Fiberchannel. It has handled uncompressed HD before, so I was sure it could handle any drive speed issues… Again, same exact problems… I am beginning to think it could be some kind of frame rate issue with the sound/picture running at different rates…

[David Bertman]

I thought of that too… but the seq gives me no red “render” lines. It plays the pix and sound back perfectly, just on some particular clips the sound is not in sync with the picture. Then on others cut in the same way, it is…

[David Bertman]

Thats an aesthetic question. I actually like the cinematic look that the widescreen appraoch has… so the question is, how do I achieve that aspect ratio without sacrificing too much of the image.

[David Bertman]

While that is one of the three options. I am trying to figure out how to do that logarithmic stretch version

[David Bertman]

I’m on quad 2.5 GHz G5 with 8 Gigs of RAM. I have 1.5 TBof storage (via Gtech G-Raid FW800 drives). My system has 2 Apple cinema displays (a 23″ and a 30″) running off a GEForce 7800GT video card…. I’m running FCP 5.0.4 and my OS is 10.4.8. As to what that are shooting, I believe it is 24p HD Varicam. Not sure which camera they are using (or if thats even really relavant)… Did I forget any specs?

[David Bertman]

But that still doesnt really tell me what to do. I obviously want the best possible DVD quality I can get. I have a master on Digitbeta that was shot on film. I need to re-edit certain scenes so I cant just lay the whole piece to DVD. But, if I’m getting those half frames when I digitize it into FCP, do I want to re-edit it in FCP to lose them or are those simply the result of an interlaced medium going to a progressive monitor and thus even cutting them out wont change anything. (I’d prefer not to have to cut them out as the master is already mixed and I dont have access to the original stems so even cutting 1 frame when theres a song playing is noticable…

Sorry if this sounds kinda dumb- the interlaced/deinterlaced/3:2 pulldown stuff kinda confuses me. (Thats why I ask you gurus!)

Thanks.

[David Bertman]

Operator error??? Moi???

But isn’t Final Cut Pro supposed to know what I want before I tell it??? After all, it is an Apple product and Apple always seems to release new, very expensive CPUs just before I need to buy one… Or they clairvoyantly know to wait a month after I have purchased some sortware to release a costly upgrade…

Anyway, thanks for your help Tony. You were right.

[David Bertman]

MINOR BUG??????

I tried what you said and yes, you’re right it works. The problem is when I select all the clips in the bin at the same time and then right click and change them to anamophic, FCP doesnt change them all (only the actual clip I was on when I right clicked). Which means I need to select EVERY clip manually right click and make it anamorphic- which will take HOURS seeing as this is a feature with about 65 hours worth of dailies, And then after I have done all the dailies bins, I have to go to the individual scene bins and do the exact same thing. THEN assuming I havent been rushed to a hospital with Carpal tunnel syndrome, I need to go through the sequence and find every instance when I had cut in a non-anamorphic clip, match frame it, and recut in the new “modified” version…

And this is a MINOR bug???

I’m curious, what would you consider a major bug?

(Or, is there a more streamlined version you can suggest to making them all recognized as anamorphic?)

Thanks!