[Jordan Livingston]

Hi Peter,

That’s what I thought at first (the unsqueezed horizontal size is about 854 for NTSC DV), however somebody on the Apple discussions said the way Apple products handle it is that they keep the width at 720 and change the height to 405 (instead of 480). Is this incorrect?

– Jordan

[Jordan Livingston]

Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong here (and do check my math!), but this is the solution I have come up with based on a thread from the Apple Discussion Forums:

Producing 2.00:1 “Letterboxed” Matte within Anamorphic 16:9 NTSC DVCAM

16:9 Anamoprhic NTSC DVCAM Video = 720×405 pixels

FCP5 “Crop” Filter:
1% of 405 = 4.05 pixels

720 / 2.00 = 360 pixels (desired height)

405 – 360 = 45 pixels (that need to be cropped off)

45 / 2 = 22.5 (need to be cropped off top and bottom)

1 is to 4.05 as X is to /22.5

X = 22.5 / 4.05

X = 5.55% = amount of % to crop off top and bottom.

– Jordan

[Jordan Livingston]

No, not really… I have been editing for years and always monitor on NTSC Televisions. Still, I noticed the color profiles the other day and I figured that they must serve SOME purpose to get the LCDs and Computer CRTs into the ballpark (usually, the client prefers the look on the computer screen, and it’s difficult to explain what you just told me – “illegal” values – when they simply want what they see, despite the technical facts about what they shot).

– Jordan

[Jordan Livingston]

Understood, BUT, what color profile should an LCD monitor use to most-closely portray the NTSC video material? As I understand it, the Apple LCD RGB profile doesn’t come close. Anyway to improve this?

– Jordan