Anamorphic material in iDVD6

I thought this was going to be fixed. Don't get me wrong. I'm happy just for the new iPhoto and iWEB!!!
But really. Toss in some great DVD themes and I'm a sucker for it. Except when it won't (I mean I can't figure out how to get it to) do what I need!!
I edit in FCP and generally publish to dvd with DVDSP.
I need to get some films which are shot anamorphic to work in iDVD.
I've got one project here with 7 short films. 4 were shot 4:3 and 3 are 16:9. All 7 come out as 4:3. I thought there might be an issue with the preview feature of iDVD so I burned a copy. No luck.
Did a search here and found some sort of hacks but as you've already assessed I'm an idiot and need some step by step hand-holding if I'm going to do anything to my computer and applications that Apple didn't have the decency to fix on their own.
Please tell me I'm just missing a button somewhere.
Again, I set up my project as a 'widescreen' project. Menu looks great in widescreen. Press to show a film and oops... everyone's tall and skinny.
Should I just stay with DVDSP? Am I really asking too much for iDVD?
Thanks,
CaptM

When I use anamorphicizer, it only works for me if within FCE I disable the "anamorphic" checkmark on the clip properties. This forces it to looked stretched to fill the 4:3 window in FCE and when exported as a QT file. But then after using anamorphicizer, it correctly is shown as widescreen in iDVD6. If I leave the "anamorphic" checkmark on the clip properties in FCE, then it exports as a letterbox QT file and then anamorphicizer simply stretches it in iDVD6 but still with the letterbox black borders on top and bottom. Does it sound like I'm doing something wrong.
Secondly, if I try to use titles within FCE, checking or unchecking the "anamorphic" checkmark has no effect and so they are shown as normal proportions regardless of how the clip works. Then after using anamorphicizer, although the clip is now widescreen properly, the text now gets stretched from left-to-right. Is there a way to distort the text with FCE so that after using anamorphicizer and bringing the resulting QT file into iDVD6 that the text will look correct?
Sounds like this anamorphic is more trouble than it's worth and I'll stick with shooting 4:3 video since I prefer FCE to iMovie. But still, I'd like to learn how to solve this problem. Thanks.

Similar Messages

  • Final Cut Pro Video Playback not in Widescreen for Anamorphic Material

    I have a Panasonic DVX-100B hooked up to my computer and am running Final Cut Pro. I shot everything in the anamorphic squeeze mode. When I play this material back through my camera (which displays the material as widescreen because I forced it on the camera menu) it doesn't playback on the TV in widescreen, it stretches it back out vertically. Is there a setting in Final Cut that will send the signal as a 16:9 signal to the TV, so that it will understand it correctly?

    baadayakazi wrote:
    Is there a setting in Final Cut that will send the signal as a 16:9 signal to the TV, so that it will understand it correctly?
    No, FCP does not send out an anamorphic flag via firewire. What I mean is, it sends out the video to your deck simply as 720x480, without telling the deck (and therefore the monitor, as well) if that is supposed to be a 16:9 or 4:3 image. In order to monitor with the correct ratio, you'll need to have a monitor that can correct for aspect ratio.
    If you're working on a pro monitor, it should have a 16:9 button (or menu setting, at least). Some recent - as in the last 4-5 years - consumers TVs also have an anamorphic squeeze feature that will compress the image vertically. If you've got a 16:9 TV, you'll need to use the stretch feature (of all things) to correct your preview image.
    All that said, I'm guessing you fall into the last camp: you're previewing out to a consumer TV that cannot do vertical compression? If so, your only alternative is to nest your anamorphic sequence in a 4:3 one for preview purposes. Of course, this is needlessly cumbersome (and you run into the dreaded issues with nests failing to update every now-and-then) and requires more CPU horsepower. Either that or edit with the distorted image...
    Or are you in a whole 'nother situation?

  • Trouble exporting anamorphic material

    So I'm simple trying to export a quicktime from an dv-pal anamorphic sequence and everytime I do it comes up as 4:3 frame size. I use the 'Current Settings' tab and failing that tried dv-pal anamorphic both exporting out as 4:3. I probably not doing something incredible simple, but I literally can't figure out what!?
    Any help may save me losing more hair.
    cheers, Matt

    Matt,
    Anamorphic DV is 4:3 ... thats why it appears so when you play it back in QT Player ... what you need to do is set a flag in the exported movie that tells QT player to stretch the movie back out to the intended aspect during play back.
    Open the movie in *Quicktime Player*, then open the *Movie Properties* window (Cmd - J)
    Switch to the Presentation tab and change the *Conform Aperture* To popup to Production
    See if that works for you
    Cheers
    Andy

  • Aspect ratio: 4:3 material being exported with black bars (on the sides!)

    Hi all
    I'm fairly new to using FinalCut Express: previously I've used other non-linear video editors on Windows.
    I'm having a bit of a weird problem: I've got a sequence which was shot entirely in 4:3 (PAL). However, when I try to export that to a QuickTime movie it appears squashed from either side — black bars appear at the sides of the frame and everyone looks very tall and thin. The frame itself is still 4:3 but everything is being squashed to fit in the bars.
    I've fiddled with as many settings as are immediately obvious to me to see if I can rectify this, but so far no banana: the sequence is about 90 minutes long and takes about 30 minutes to render each time when exporting.
    Has anyone got any ideas what to do about this? I've been trying to do some research into how FCP/FCE handle different aspect ratios, and it seems to be a very complicated topic. In fact, in the same project I've got a sequence which contains almost entirely 16:9 anamorphic material. Ideally I'd like this to be output in a 16:9 frame with the few 4:3 clips appearing with bars on the side. However, it's only being output as 4:3 where the 4:3 clips appear full-frame and the 16:9 clips have bars at top and bottom...
    Hope someone can help!
    Mac Pro: 3GHz, 6GB RAM, X1900XT, BT, AirPort   Mac OS X (10.4.8)  

    Tom, thanks for the reply.
    Everything looks absolutely fine when played back in FCE; it's only when exporting to QuickTime that my problems start. The point is that this 4:3 sequence isn't being output into a 16:9 frame as a pillarbox: what's actually happening is that it's being put into a 4:3 frame with bars, with the result that the content is in fact being squeezed (it looks wrong).
    How can you modify the aspect-ratio settings for a given sequence? I've looked through all the obvious sequence properties settings but have never found anything.
    I'll just reiterate — it plays back fine within the viewer; only when output does it all go awry.
    Richard

  • Burning a DVD from FCP 4 anamorphic

    I'm trying to burn a DVD from my FCP 4. but even though everything is set as anamorphic, the DVD comes out all squished. I was able to burn a DVD several months ago of the same footage, for some reason i'm not able to do this. I'm really frustrated and need to be able to do this. Any suggestions? Thanks

    Which program are you burning the DVD with? DVDSP? or iDVD?
    I'm not on my computer where I have the link bookmarked, but there is a droplet you need to burn anamorphic material in iDVD. Unless you've done it in iMovie. Odd bug, and one they're working on if they've listened to me... which they did, I'm sure.
    If it's DVDSP then you need to select the track in dvdsp and then tell it to force letterbox.
    Should work fine for you. I'll hunt around and see if I cannot find that other link for you... but it's there in the iDVD forum.
    Good luck,
    CaptM

  • FCP/FCE anamorphic to iDVD - A simple solution?

    I posted this over in the iDVD forum, but I would like to get some response from you guys on this matter too.
    I have seen a lot of discussions about how hard it is to get anamorphic material from FCP/FCE into iDVD. There seem to be a few complex workarounds using third party software etc.
    Today I suddenly came to think about a possible very simple solution.
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    2. Open the clip in QuickTime Pro
    3. Choose the Window menu and choose Show Movie Properties
    4. Select the Video Track and click the Visual Settings tab
    5. Uncheck Preserve Aspect Ratio
    6. Change the width to 854 (DV-NTSC) or to 1024 (DV-PAL)
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    8. Open iDVD and start a new 16:9 Widescreen project
    9. Import your modified QuickTime clip
    10. Author and burn your DVD
    Is it really this easy? Are there any downsides to doing it this way?
    I just tested this workflow, and the finished DVD looked fine.
    I prefer using Compressor/DVD Studio Pro my self, but it would be nice to have a simple solution to offer those who ask about bringing anamorphic material from FCP/FCE into iDVD.
    I wonder why Apple has not implemented an anamorphic checkbox or something like that inside iDVD. I have not yet found any guidance from Apple on this matter. Have I missed something here?

    I gave the usual dimensions for Standard Definition DV Anamorphic as an example. The actual dimensions for DV Anamorphic NTSC and PAL are: 720x480 and 720x576, but when stretched, the right width is 854 and 1024 as mentioned in my first post. The dimentions you are mentioning are for High Definition 1080i/p
    If you are editing 720p, the dimentions are: 1280 × 720.
    This might be of help:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:CommonVideoResolutions.svg

  • Wierd HDV to SD DVD anamorphic problem

    I've read many articles on this workflow, but I haven't seen anyone with my particular problem yet.
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    But I continue. I drop this file into Compressor, and use the default DVD MPEG best quality settings. Compressor makes a 16x9 file thats 720x404. What I believe I want and need is a 720x480 movie that's squeezed. Otherwise I'm losing resolution.
    Funny thing is, when I export a still frame TGA from the same timeline, it's squeezed! 1440 x 1080.
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    Thanks
    Brian

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  • Anamorphic sequence question

    Hi, I'm working with anamorphic footage in a project. If a sequence has been edited in a non-anamorphic sequence in the same project, is there a way to copy the edited footage to an anamorphic sequence without it coming in with added black bars?
    thanks very much.

    When you copy the anamorphic material to the anamorphic sequence, the material should be fine. If there is any distortion, load the clip into the VIEWER and select the MOTION tab>DISTORTION and change the RATIO to 0 (zero)
    good luck.
    x

  • Exported anamorphic QT movie does not retain 16:9 image (it is squeezed)

    i have a 26 minute short anamorphic film sequence that i want to preserve as a self-contained quicktime movie. and also to use it to burn copies of the film in i-dvd. i go to export as a QT Movie under "file" and then choose the setting DV-NTSC 48 Khz Anamorphic. The final product, however, when opened in QT player or i-dvd is NOT the anamorphic image i see in FCP but something rather squeezed, and with the dimensions 720x480. what have i done wrong?
    thank you....

    What you're seeing IS the anamorphic frame, what you see in fcp is the corrected frame. If you want to burn to dvd use anamorphicizer ( http://mac.softpedia.com/get/Video/Anamorphicizer.shtml ) on the file before importing to idvd or use dvdsp, which works with anamorphic material properly.
    Anamorphic material is stored in a different aspect ratio to the display aspect in order to cut down on the number of pixels needed, in the case of sd anamorphic it's as a result of sd being natively 4:3 and 16:9 support having to be added to an existing system. So the image is stored in the wrong shape in order to use all the pixels that exist in the sd world, and then corrected on display.
    If you want to create a file for web/computer use only, then you either need to use the qt conform aperture setting or export using qt conversion and using a frame size with a 16:9 ratio such as 640x360.

  • After Effects Anamorphic Aspect Ratio

    I'm creating graphics from scratch in After Effects (involving JPEG images and text), and I need to import it into an NTSC DV anamorphic 16:9 FCP sequence. I've set both the composition and assets to "D1/DV NTSC Widescreen" pixel aspect ratios. When I render the movie using current settings, it comes out 4:3. I'm tearing my hair out. How do I export 16:9 anamorphic material from After Effects?

    What about your "footage interpretation" in AE?
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    But if you also see your graphics as they should look in a 4:3 movie (so they are not squeezed as they should) the problem is 90% your footage interpretation...
    "footage interpretation" must match your footage typical aspect ratio and not your composition settings...
    For example... If you use a jpeg picture, "footage intepretation" must be SQUARE PIXELS because jepg is square pixels even if you use it in a NTSC ANAMORPHIC composition...
    If you use an NTSC DV video file, the "footage interpretation" must be NTSC DV even if you use it in an NTSC DV ANAMORPHIC composition and so on...
    Always use "make movie" or "add to render queue" when exporting from AE... The "export" command in the "file" menu is for special purposes only (i.e. exporting to flash video ro wmv, compressed quicktime for web, cd-rom etc...)and it is not recommended when you want to import your rendered movie to an editing software...

  • FCP/FCE anamorphic to iDVD widescreen - A simple solution?

    I have seen a lot of discussions about how hard it is to get anamorphic material from FCP/FCE into iDVD. There seem to be a few complex workarounds using third party software etc.
    Today I suddenly came to think about a possible very simple solution.
    1. Export to QuickTime from FCP/FCE
    2. Open the clip in QuickTime Pro
    3. Choose the Window menu and choose Show Movie Properties
    4. Select the Video Track and click the Visual Settings tab
    5. Uncheck Preserve Aspect Ratio
    6. Change the width to 854 (DV-NTSC) or to 1024 (DV-PAL)
    7. Save the clip and quit QuickTime
    8. Open iDVD and start a new 16:9 Widescreen project
    9. Import your modified QuickTime clip
    10. Author and burn your DVD
    Is it really this easy? Are there any downsides to doing it this way? The modified QuickTime clip's Movie Info in QuickTime says: Format: DV, 720 x 576 (1024 x 576)
    I just tested this workflow, and the finished DVD looked fine.

    I gave the usual dimensions for Standard Definition DV Anamorphic as an example. The actual dimensions for DV Anamorphic NTSC and PAL are: 720x480 and 720x576, but when stretched, the right width is 854 and 1024 as mentioned in my first post. The dimentions you are mentioning are for High Definition 1080i/p
    If you are editing 720p, the dimentions are: 1280 × 720.
    This might be of help:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:CommonVideoResolutions.svg

  • Dv pal anamorphic?

    we have recorded some material that was obviously shot at dv pal anamorphic settings.
    when i open the quicktime clips in qt-player, it shows as
    DV 720 x 576 (1024x576)
    in final cut, we have tried finding the correct settings for timeline, but no matter what we try, fcp seems to insist on adding black bars on top and below.
    when encoding, we end up with 4:3 video, neatly blackboxed.
    as nicely as this is, i would like to know how to get fcp to treat the video at it's native format and how to get compressor to encode it as such.
    would prefer the dvd-player to decide how to display the video from there on...
    any suggestions on where to look?
    there used to be an "anamorphic" setting in fcp once upon a time, but that seems to have disappeared - or has it been replaced? if so, with what?
    thanks

    Hi Rene,
    In oder to have handle FCP this in the right way you need to capture it as DV PAL anamorphic in the first place. An Easy Setup should exsist, but you can simply use DV PAL preset and set the anamorphic checkbox in the capture preset (preferences) as well as the timeline presets.
    I you by accident did not capture the material as Anamorphic, you easily tell FCP that it really is anamorphic, by checkmarking the anamorphc column in the Browser.
    If you forgot to set the sequence/timeline settings to anamorphic BEFORE dropping footage in it, then first set the settings of that sequence by checkmarking the anamorphic chekmark in the timeline settings (Command 0).
    Then choose all clips in the sequence and Remove Attributes (Command-Option-V). In that pop-up menu choose Distort. This will remove the aspect settings that FCP created automattically when you dropped anamorphic material in a 4:3 timeline or vice versa.
    Hope this helps.
    Rienk

  • Anamorphic Setup - Final Cut Studio Training

    I inadvertedly posted this in the DVD SP forum. I'd like to move it here where it belongs.
    I just got my Final Cut Pro Studio a couple weeks ago, had to finish a project that I was doing in FCE and iDVD, and am now reviewing the tutorial on the Final Cut Studio Training DVD.
    One of the first steps is to setup the session to "DV-NTSC Anamorphic". Since I had already blown past that 2 week ago, I did not see it this time, nor could I find the correct menu to make that setting for the tutorial. So I just blew by it; realizing that I'd find out sooner or later what the cost would be.
    I found out: When doing the Motion segment and importing the final "TrailerLowerThirds" back into FCP, that part is compressed horizontally with black side bars on the right and left.
    3 questions:
    How do I make that setting if I've been running FCP already?
    What does that do to the project, the clips, anything else?
    If I were to make this mistake on one of my projects, how would I recover?
    So far I've only been making projects in DV-NTSC 2:3 (I guess that's the right way to say it). Any insights would be appreciated.
    G5 dual core 2Ghz, 2.5 GB, 160, 300GB & 300GBfw   Mac OS X (10.4.6)   FCE HD, FCSP5.1

    My second question was: "What does that do to the project, the clips, anything else?"
    The essential thing to bear in mind is that 4:3 and 16:9 anamorphic projects (in the SD world) have the SAME resolution: 720x480 pixels for NTSC, 720x576 for PAL. Because the resolution is the same, but the apparent frame size is different, it can lead to confustion, and it's easy to get it wrong - especially over there in the US where anamorphic broadcasting of SD material never took off, and thus widescreen sets were never mass market before HD.
    (The situation here in Europe is different.).
    Have a read of this for clarity: http://www.helerab.fi/widescreen/
    The anamoprhic easy setup just tells FCP that you are capturing anamorphic material, and that new sequences should be anamorphic by default. You can override these defaults if necessary, but the easy setup just makes it harder to mess up.
    The important thing when going to DVD is to keep the workflow anamorphic all the way through: output anamorphic material from FCP, make sure material is transcoded to mpeg (whether through compressor, iDVD or Quicktime) with anamorphic settings intact; and in your DVD authoring application, make sure projects, menus and tracks are created or flagged as 16:9.
    The end result is an anamorphic DVD.
    Your DVD player has a menu where you tell it what type of TV it's connected to - whether 4:3 or widescreen (and if it's a 4:3 set, how it should handle widescreen material: either letterboxing it or "cropping" it via pan/scan).
    I've started noticing in other posts that some people think that if you have anamorphic material you should set your DVD player to 16:9. This is NOT A GOOD IDEA (unless the DVD player is attached to a widescreen TV, in which case you have it set to 16:9 already!) Just set the DVD player once and leave it alone.
    Hope these observations help get you started. If you understand what's going on with anamorphic media, you're less likely to make mistakes. Best of luck.

  • Anamorphic in iDVD workaround

    There has been a lot of discussion about how to force iDVD to show anamorphic movies correctly when burnt to a DVD. There have also been a lot of work-arounds none of which seem to be 100% reliable.
    There does seem to be one way which avoids the whole problem of using anamorphic material in iDVD entirely. This Apple Support document suggests the way:
    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305337
    It suggests using QT Pro to change the scaled image size to:
    PAL 1024 x 576
    NTSC 853 x 480
    I suggest that a better solution for FC users is to export the anamorphic sequence to Compressor. Create a preset setting based on DV-PAL or DV-NTSC but NOT anamorphic. Set the aspect ratio first to 16:9, then set the image height and width to the appropriate dimensions above. Save this special preset. Drag it onto the sequence file and convert it to your output file.
    This can be then imported into iDVD as a normal 16:9 movie without worrying about confusing it with anamorphism!
    It seems to work for me so far. I'd be interested to hear if anyone can verify that it solves the problem for them. (It seems too easy!)

    I have used this method but it is very tedious since my DVDs frequently contain a couple of dozen items, the copies of which all have to be individually unlocked and permissions altered to R/W. Then I have to change each item in myDVDEdit. If I forget to unlock one of the items, myDVDEdit crashes when I try to change it. Furthermore, the DVD doesn't always work on my 3 DVD players the same way, probably due to the way some players treat file metadata differently.
    I don't see why the whole anamorphic problem can't be sidestepped simply by using Compressor to resize the sequence video to 16:9 dimensions as an ordinary file.
    Have you tried this way to see if it works for you?

  • Anamorphic question

    I'm editing 16:9 anamorphic material in Final Cut Pro, then exporting to Compressor with the "High Quality Widescreen" mpeg2 encode selected, and importing the resulting file into Studio Pro 2, where I select "16:9 letterboxed"in the track pulldown menu. The resulting DVD is letterboxed when played on a conventional 4:3 monitor but when I play it on my Sony production monitor, which has 16:9 capability, it still plays as letterboxed. I know this because if I select "Underscan" on the monitor I can see that the usual video noise at the top and bottom of the full video frame is outside the black bands. If I select "16:9" on the monitor, the image gets squashed vertically. Does this problem occur because the monitor doesn't automatically communicate with the DVD player and use the full pixel set on the DVD to go into anamorphic mode? How can I be sure that the DVD is really anamorphic and will play as anamorphic on a widescreen TV?
    ALFRED GUZZETTI

    If you can try the disc on a recent Mac system, DVD Player will give it a wide window if it's anamorphic.

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