[Josh Wells]

Had this problem many many times. When you use FCP Media Manager to go from SD to HD is bases the aspect ratio off the SD clips and ends up srewing it all up. Here is how I fix it:

Double click on the first incorrect clip on the timeline. In the preview window click on the motion tab. Check under “Basic Motion” – “Scale” should be 100 (if your timeline codec and video codec are the same) then “Distort” – “Aspect Ratio” should be 1. If these values are changed and the image still is not right, manually adjust till the image shows up correctly. Then, while the motion tab is still active, hit “Copy.” Now select all the other clips on the timeline (this may not work if you have selected transitions, test it and see, if not, deselect the transitions) then while the timeline is still active, hit “Paste” Now all clips should have the same aspect and scale as the first clips.

As a side not I should say that if you have mixed media with different codecs and aspect ratios on your timeline they may not all agree with the settings for the first clip. In which case you will have to reset each of them manually using the same method above.

Only select “Display Square Pixels” if your codec uses square pixels. If they use apsected pixels this will only confuse the images further.