Aspect ratio problem with Quicktime Conversion from FCE HD 3.5

I have a FCE 3.5 HDV project (16:9 aspect ratio) which I am trying to export using Quicktime Conversion for eventual web-streaming. I have tried various settings including "maintain aspect ratio" and the "letterbox" options. After every multi-hour attempt, the end result is just what I need, except the aspect ratio is always 4:3 and vertically squeezed.
What settings should I use for a small to medium sized version of my movie for streaming on a website, but in the correct aspect ratio? I'd prefer a 16:9 Quicktime frame, or at least a 4:3 Quicktime frame with black bars.

I too have been having some problems, same software. Export to iPod completely ignores the intended aspect ratio and is non-adjustable and squeezes the footage. It looks fine on the canvas but gets messed up on export. A 4:3 video that should be 640x480 ends up being 640x426, and a 16:9 video that should be 640x360 looks to be getting 640x426 as well.
Currently, my work-around is to export to DV file, then export to iPod. Being a double encoding, it is quite wasteful in terms of time and processing power. Is there something else I can do?

Similar Messages

Problems with Quicktime Conversion, FCE2

I am having problems using quicktime conversion. I want to export a 4 minute sequence into uncompressed AVI.
Each time i do this i get an almost 4 gb file that is only the first 18 seconds of the sequence. (when i export to WMV I get the same problem, except its 30 seconds)
I can export using compressed AVIs (such as DV-PAL), but the quality is not too good.
I am simply trying to get the best quality and most-universally useable file to write out onto a data DVD.
Any ideas/suggestions anyone?
I have am using a PowerPC G4 laptop, FCE2, OSX tiger....
Further problems: when i write this movie out to DVD with iDVD, and when it is in NTSC setting, black white lines appear on top of the black background parts in the movie, rather sporadically. I have written it out 3 or 4 times, and each time the frequency of the lines is different, but each DVD is unusable. In PAL setting this doesnt happen, but of course the quality is diminished, as the orig. footage was taken on an NTSC camera. I am in Europe, so this PAL/NTSC conversion thing is a neverending problem.... Is this an iDVD problem or a problem with my laptop's burner?
Daniel

Dear Tom,
I appreciate you replying to my post, and am sorry for not getting back to you sooner, but i never received an email notification of a reply.
The Nattress solution seems like a good route - is this compatible with FC Express 2?
The purpose of this AVI export is to have the highest possible quality file in data form, which the (PC using) client will then be able to write out onto DVD, convert/edit himself, etc. I have written out the self-contained QuicktimeMovie data file for him, but he is unable to open that. When i write out the AVI file, it is over 4 times as big as the QTmovie file and only plays for the first 18 seconds.
I am exporting to my internal harddrive (laptop).
The end goal is to get this file eventually onto a PAL-BETA video. This is where the NTSC-PAL conversion problem comes in, and maybe the Nattress program could be the solution (although it initially seems a bit complicated to me).
Another important part of this problem, is that iDVD writes out the original NTSC file with funny white lines going across the black backgrounds - so I cant write the best quality NTSC video onto DVD properly either. Each time I write it out, the frequency of these white lines is different. I dont know if this is a related problem, a Final Cut Express export problem, an iDVD problem, or a problem with my DVD writer. (I made the movie, exported it self-contained QTmov, imported it into a new file, did some color-correction, and exported the new final version. - maybe the problem stems from within this simple process? ? ? )
(Regarding the WMV export: this is not so important, lets not deal with this now. I have flip4mac, downloaded free. My experience is that it doesnt really work.)
So... any ideas or suggestions?
i appreciate your help,
Daniel

Problems With Quicktime content from Apple website

Hi
I have problems visualizing various sections of the Apple website that contains quicktime content. (Safari thinks Quicktime is not installed)
for example can't see shuffle giuded tour
http://www.apple.com/ipodshuffle/guidedtour/tour/large.html
or the video for the iphone os 3.0
http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/0903lajkszg/event/index.html
from the safari error console i can see there are runtime javascript errors on calls to
'AC.Detector', whose result is non an object, as you can see here
http://i40.tinypic.com/1jb1qc.jpg
http://i42.tinypic.com/15ejrb9.jpg
Any idea?
Thanks
PS: i have no problems with quicktime from other websites, or from other parts of
Apple.

i don't know
it could be an issue with something else, maybe iTunes
look here
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8689671&#8689671
same issue with 'AC.Detector' (I don't know what that is)
i have not had problems with Apple quicktime content in the recent past (same Safari 4 Beta)
i installed iTunes 8.1 recently

Problem with QuickTime Movies From iMovie HD

I posted this earlier (on the second day of Leopard's Release), and did not get much feedback, and so thought I'd try again after people have had time to run Leopard.
I have some movies that I created using iMovie HD. I have the QuickTime version of the movie for use with Front Row.
On my G5 iMac running Leopard, the quality of the movies on Front Row is fine. However, in Leopard, the quality is lousy. The movies were made from still photos, using the Ken Burns effect. There are also transitions. On the web, on my iWeb site, the pictures take a while to come into focus. I sort of expect this on the web. However, I've found the same thing with the movie files using Front Row on Leopard. Again, this slowness in coming into focus does not appear when playing the movie on Front Row on Tiger on a G5 iMac.
Curious if anyone else has encountered problems/issues with QuickTime movies files from iMovie HD. And if so, what if any fixes are available.
Thanks in advance.
Russell

Hmmmm, so it works OK in Front Row but NOT in Quicktime player? Thats odd. Front Row works worse for me!
It sounds like it may be a rendering problem with Quicktime - It has to process the file in general (or parts of the file, for example, if you export 10 pics looped in Flash, it has to process the 10 image files each time it plays it through, resulting in the first 4 or 5 images to shoot out jerkily [read LAG] unlike the rest of the movie, which is smooth). If these images in your movie are large in file size or contain tons of wacky photoshopped effects, etc, that might be whats causing the problem.
I'd check everything is updated to the latest version, repair permissions on the disk in Disk Utility, and then see if anythings improved.
Hope this helps you.

Aspect ratio problem with AVCHD in iMovie 08

I am importing footage from a Panasonic HDC-SD9 into iMovie 08. the footage gets in there fine and looks great EXCEPT that the footage (all shot in 16:9) is squashed a little bit. in the preview clips below, it looks fine, but in the player above (and if I export it as a Quicktime file) it is squashed slightly. there are black bars above and below the footage, and (I'm guessing) were the video stretched to fill the entire area, eliminating the black bars, it would be the correct aspect ratio. I've tried importing footage form the camera supposedly shot in 4:3, and the same thing happens.
I know that I can simply do a quick edit in imovie, export it, import it into final cut pro, and stretch it back. however, I'm worried about losing quality, and more importantly, I don't know the exact ratio, since I can't even figure out what imovie is doing to the video to make it squashed, let alone in what manner.
the footage from the HDC-SD9 is AVCHD, and I understand there is something about square pixels vs. rectangular, but I don't know much about it. I have tried every iteration of imovie's limited aspect ratio settings, and I can't get it to work. I know it's meant to work well with AVCHD, so I'm assuming I'm missing something fundamental and simple. (some box to check to let imovie know I'm importing AVCHD?) it's maddening to see the footage correctly in the thumbnails, but squashed for (seemingly) no reason in the playback. can you help me out? otherwise I am going to film myself holding something that is a perfect square, then import it to imovie, then export to quicktime, then import the quicktime file into finalcut, then stretch it til the rectangle becomes a perfect square, and write down the settings for the future. seems ridiculously complicated, especially for the mac world.
I love imovie 08 (seriously, some of the new toys are just so amazing, and no render time at all!), and I love this camera. please tell me they can get along!

I think I'm having a problem similar to this. I'm using a Sharp MiniDV camera, and shooting in 16:9. When I used to import to other versions of iMovie it worked fine, but w/ iMovie 08 it is squashing and stretching the incoming video to more like 20:9 (I have no idea what the actual ratio is, this is just a guess). I tried changing import to PAL 25fps, but that didn't do any thing. Any other suggestions?

Aspect Ratio Problems with iDVD

I am putting together a video presentation with video from several different sources. I have had a whale of a time getting the video to display uniformly at the same aspect ratio. I put all my separate clips into Quicktime Pro and set the aspect ratio to 960 X 540. FINALLY, in Quicktime Pro I was able to assemble the full video so that ALL the footage played in 960 X 540 and looked seamless. I thought I was in great shape.
Then......I thought I would test the video in iDVD because I need to burn about 40 copies of this presentation. Lo and behold, iDVD takes part of the video footage and somehow changes the aspect ratio of certain footage. Part of the video plays in a small postage stamp area in the upper left of the screen, while other segments play in full widescreen just fine. Obviously, my aspect ratios are still messed up somehow, even though the the entire video plays in full 960 X 540 glory in Quicktime Pro. I'm stumped.
Anybody run across this problem in iDVD before?

Wow, nobody qualified to help me with this problem?
I'm finding out, thanks to more research on my part, that iDVD does not like the aspect ratio of 960 X 540. The only reason I used that setting is because part of of my video has an iMovie 9 "trailer" and iMovie 9's "large" export is set to 960 X 540. The weird thing is iDVD handles segments of my video that is 960X540 just fine, but it completely bungles up the iMovie 9 trailer segment that is 960 X 540.
I have also found in further testing that iDVD does like a .move file in 853 X 480 and displays that aspect ratio in full widescreen glory.
Hopefully this information will help somebody someday avoid the headaches I have had.

Aspect Ratio Problem with Onlining

Hi,
I checked the old posts and couldn't find an answer.
I'm using Ken Stone's article to online my project. I followed the instructions except for the point right after the new online file is created and just before you capture footage. He says to change the Audio/Video Settings to go from Capture Preset (DV to OfflineRE NTSC (Photo JPEG) to DV NTSC 48 kHz). I did that. I also changed the Sequence Preset (which wasn't mentioned in the article) from Offline RT NTSC (Photo JPEG) to DV NTSC 48 kHz.
When I captured the full-res footage, the clips were squeezed to look more widescreen. The image hadn't been cropped, just stretched.
These are the sequence settings for my offline project:
Frame Size: 320x240 Multimedia Large (4:3)
Pixel Aspect Ratio: Square - (Anamorphic 16:9 box not checked.)
Field Dominance: none
Editing Timebase: 29.97
Quicktime video Settings
Compressor: Photo - JPEG
Quality: 35%
These are the sequence settings for my online project:
Frame Size: 720x480 NTSC DV (3:2)
Pixel Aspect Ratio: NTSC- CCIR 610/DV(720x280)- (Anamorphic 16:9 box not checked.)
Field Dominance: Lower (even)
Editing Timebase: 29.97
Quicktime video Settings
Compressor: DV/DVCPRO - NTSC
Quality: 100%
I filmed the original footage on miniDV (NTSC) with a Canon GL2 3CCD camera. The footage was onlined with a Sony DCR-HC32 1CCD miniDV (NTSC) camera. I'm using FCP 5.0.4 on an apple powerbook g4. OS 10.4.8
I'm sure the solution is something small that I'm missing. Thanks a lot for any help!

Hey you might have already done this but check the settings of the new clips not just the sequence. Right-click on one of the affected clips in ur browser then go down to item properties-> format and see if the anamorphic option is ticked on these. Hope this helps,
Howard
G5 iMac 20inch, Macbook Mac OS X (10.4.7) FCS 5.1, 500GB External

Aspect ratio problem with consumer camera and Premiere Elements 11

Hello everyone - I'm Steve. I'm new here. I do still photography on a pro level, digital and analog, but I am an absolute dummy with video...but then, I don't want to do much, just rudimentarily cut a few family videos, upload them, etc.
However, I can't get Premiere Elements 11 to output my self-shot clips in a correct aspect ratio.
My camera is a consumer-model Canon Legria FS200. I shoot video in a resolution the camera calls XP. The camera says they are 16:9, the camera monitor shows them as 16:9, and when I use the software (called Pixela Image Mixer) that came with the camera to import the clips to disk, I get mpg files that Windows (7) Explorer says are 720x576 pixel, and that VLC player correctly displays as wide-screen 16:9 without me having to tweak its display settings.
However, the moment I import them into Premiere Elements, they appear horizontally squeezed, and I can't seem to output them any other way, with or even without editing them in Premiere.
I tried to use the recipe given here: https://forums.adobe.com/message/5987538#5987538 , (replacing only NTSC with PAL because I'm in Germany), namely, setting the project preset set manually for PAL/Hard Disk etc/ Widescreen 48kHz and check force selected program settings. But no matter, Premiere displays the video in horizontally compressed form, with large black bars to the right and to the left.
On the export side, setting the output to PAL DVD Widescreen and setting the Pixel Aspect Ratio in the output settings to Widescreen does not help, either. Neither can I force VLC player manually to display the correct aspect ratio. BTW, audio is perfect all along.
This is about as far as I can see myself getting without help. Has anyone any idea?
Thanks a lot in advance,
Steve, from Germany

Steve
I see that you are now in the Adobe Premiere Elements Forum with your problem already solved.
I did not see any Why for what you encountered, so I thought I would give you my take on this.
Your Canon FS200 gives video with MPEG2 video compression with a .mod file extension. That .mod file extension can be found in use with some Canon as well as JVC cameras. The .mod file history with Premiere Elements (any version) is problematic. In some instances, the user needs to rename the file extension from .mod to .mpg before it can be imported, but not always. But, the .mod widescreen comes packaged with the aspect ratio dilemma, presenting as 4:3 rather than 16:9. The classical argument is whether Premiere Elements does not recognize a .mod file's 16:9 flag or whether the 16:9 flag got lost.
There used to be a utility contributed by an user to handle the file extension and/or aspect ratio issues. Now, the general fix is to import the file into Premiere Elements (in your case 11) with Add Media/Files and Folder/Project Assets. And in Project Assets, you right click the file, select Interpret Footage, and go to the Pixel Aspect Ratio section of the Interpret Footage dialog where you
(a) dot the Conform To:
and
(a) set the Contorm To: field to (in your case) D1/DV PAL Widescreen 16:9 (1.4587)
Once you are in the program and have the file on the Timeline, if any black edges, you can click the monitor to bring up the image's bounding box. Then drag on a bounding box handle to scale the image just to the point where the black edges are gone.
If you ever need the Adobe Premiere Elements Forum, maybe bookmark this link
Premiere Elements
You should expect to have this issue with any .mod widescreen file that you obtain from your Canon FS200 camera.
ATR
Add On...If you are depending on the program to set the correct project preset, you may want to check into what it is setting based on the properties the first file you drag to the Timeline. A manual setting of the project preset may be in order. Please see
ATR Premiere Elements Troubleshooting: PE11: Accuracy of Automatic Project Preset (New Project Dialog) Setting

Aspect ratio problem with original footage.

I use a Canon mini DV camera (MD160) that shoots in widescreen, and I do all my editing in iMovie 08, all projects are Widescreen 16:9.
No problems until now, but I imported footage the other day that came up squashed (pillarboxed) in 4:3 size. The thumbnails are normal size (widescreen), as they always have been, but the preview screen has cropped the footage to make it fit in my widescreen project. So I'm losing some of my shot.
What really messes me up is that this has happened to random pieces of footage from 6 months ago too, but some footage from last week is unaffected. It is NOT THE PROJECT that has changed, but the original imported footage in my event library, which was always widescreen. Even original shots I took with the iSight camera have changed to the squashed format.
And I obviously can't e-mail Apple, so what's going on? Is there any idea out there what caused this? And how do I alter original footage - I don't want to crop, so is there any way to stretch a 4:3 image into 16:9 - if I can, it will look fine, back to normal.

<font color="blue"The thumbnails are normal size (widescreen), as they always have been, but the preview screen has cropped the footage to make it fit in my widescreen project. So I'm losing some of my shot.</font>
The thumbnails use the current embedded "scaled" dimensions to create the aspect for the thumbnails. On the other hand, the project ignores the current dimensions and uses the embedded aspect flag to set preview display and export/share output.
If you then "move rejected clips to trash", it deletes the bits you don't want, but then converts the remaining section into a "mov" file. This is what has been happening to my footage. So basically I can't get rid of extraneous footage (60GB+ of the stuff!) without altering the aspect ratio of my movie. How do I stop this happening?
Thanks for posting this information. It seems that when the "kept" file segments are copied to the new file container, the aspect flag is not copied. Believe this should be brought to Apple's attention ASAP as an enhancement (or a bug since it does not adhere to aspect flag priority use in main routines). Will run my own test to confirm this and likely post my own feedback report. Suggest anyone else having this problem add their support to get this corrected as soon as possible.

Aspect Ratio problem with Premiere Elements 10

I had old super 8 cine film transferred to video for me in December 2011 and put
it onto a Blu Ray disc as AVCHD files.
The disc is copied onto my computer and displays in the correct 4;3 aspect
ratio on the Desktop and plays correctly in VLC media viewer.
I have Adobe Premier Elements 10, but the video is “squeezed” narrow, e.g.
a circle displays as an oval in Monitor, Timeline and Sceneline views.
When I save the work to a disc it is also “squeezed”.
Pictures/footage from my Sony AVCHD video camera display correctly on the
Desktop and I have not had the above problem when editing it in Premier
Elements 10. I have also edited 4:3 photos and 16:9 video aspect ratios together into
without problems
I would be grateful (and relieved) if you can tell me how to fix this
please.

Thanks to people who showed an interest and replied.
Thanks especially to Kevin at digitacopycat who pointed me towards a workable solution within a couple of hours of posting the problem.
ASPECT RATIO
1. Open Premier Elements 10
2. Select and load the folder you wish to work on
3. In the Tasks Panel, click and open Project
4. Right click-on your folder
5. From the drop down menu select Interpret Footage
6. Choose Pixel Aspect Ratio and click-in the circle next to Conform to.
7. Click-on the down arrow to open the drop down menu
8. Select and click-on HD Anamorphic 1080 (1.333)
9. Click ok
10. All clips in Monitor Panel, Sceneline and Timeline change to the correct Aspect Ratio
11. Render the clips to maintain their correct Aspect Ratio

Problem with file conversion from version 9.2.2 to version 10.1.0.71

Hello everyone.
I have a problem. In my database, i have a lot of artwork done with indesign 9.2.2. Since a while now I upgraded indesign and now I have the latest version 10.1.0.71 but I can't open my indesign artwork made with indesign 9.2.2.
When I try, a dialog box appear and says : " La conversion a échoué : les données du fichier ne correspondent pas aux données attendues".
What should I do ?
Thank you in advance

Hi,
Ideally all files created in 9.2.2 should open fine in versions greater than itself.
Did you happen to have some 3rd party plugin in 9.2.2 which is missing in 10.1 ? That can be one of the reasons for such errors.
Are the files still opening in version 9.2.2? (assuming you still have 9.2.2)
If there are no 3rd party plugins involved you can share the file with us at [email protected] and we can have a look and figure out the cause of the problem.
Regards
Javed

Aspect Ratio problem with DVD output

I have a FCP sequence that I have output as a self contained QT movie. The film was shot 16:9 HD, 1080i/60
I have processed this with Compressor, using the SD DVD setting for 90 mins (the film is 8 mins) because the client wants an SD DVD, not an HD DVD, even though the film was shot in HD.
I then take the Compressor output and import that into DVD Studio Pro. I set the display mode for the track as 16:9 and in simulator select display mode.
The problem is when I output the DVD, I have two non 16:9 televisions to test it on.
On one, which can switch between wide / original / 4:3 the only setting that looks normal (i.e. not squeezed or stretched or cropped) is the 4:3 setting. Yet this is a 16:9 film.
On the other 4:3 television, with no ability to switch between wide / original / 4:3, the image fills the screen but is stretched vertically (I would have expected letterboxing and wide screen image, as when I play a commercial DVD film on this television).
How can I output a SD DVD in 16:9 from this project?
Thanks in advance!

Thank you this was very helpful. I had NOT in fact set the preferences ofr 16:9 encoding. I have now burned another DVD having made this change.
The result is better in that there are now two settings, original and 4:3 that work on one of the televisions I am testing on. Previously, the only one that worked correctly was 4:3.
I am still puzzled why I don't see the output as widescreen with black bars only at top and bottom. (I see it with black border all around. Though the image is not distorted.
Can this have anything to do with the fact that I am going from an HD format in Final Cut sequence to an SD DVD?
Thanks again!

Problems with image conversion from InDesign to PDF

My images look posterized when I convert from InDesign to PDF. Any ideas about this?

That'd be in the export settings not in Reader. Ask in the InDesign forum, they'll probably know better.

Still no fix for aspect ratio problems

I was hoping this new version would fix the aspect ratio problems with importing clips other than in the DV codec, but alas, it was not to be.
My problem is that if I import a clip that is 720x486 (non-square pixels, uncompressed), iDVD doesn't interpret it correctly. It places the clip with small black bars (like a little letterbox) at the top and bottom of the screen, then scrunches the image vertically, sprinkling it with stairstep artifacts.
What's frustrating is that versions up to iDVD 4 didn't have this problem and imported clips in any codec beautifully. It's been a known issue for a long time.
Furthermore, Apple's solution is to convert the clip to a self-contained DV movie (hello, disk space!), which is also undesirable because of the quality loss and poor colour compression. After the latest QuickTime upgrade, exporting in DV doesn't work, creating a clip that is half-field and blocky.
Argh! This is a real problem because many of us use iDVD to make screeners for clients, and it looks unprofessional. It's also a very inaccurate and somewhat useless tool when the clips are of clean lines, titles, and smooth, solid graphics, which show the stairstep effect the most.
I'm at my wit's end having exhausted all other suggested solutions (and please don't tell me to use DVD Studio Pro instead). Anyone else come up with a fix or have the same issue?
Previous discussion on this issue here: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=204675&tstart=0

Sorry, but the answer is - for professional use, use
DVD SP
No, it is absolutely not the answer. EVERYONE I know in my circle of professionals uses iDVD for banging-out quick screeners of TV spots, film clips, dailies. In fact, it's one of the main reasons they added OneStep to iDVD. DVD Studio Pro is for authoring commercial-level DVDs, with a learning curve and pricing structure appropriate to that.
I'm not going to spend time learning DVD Studio Pro just to do quick one-offs, for one, and it's overkill anyway. Not only that, but it costs a lot more than iDVD.
The inablity to import a QuickTime clip -- on Apple software, no less -- is not cool, especially since it doesn't seem an excessive thing to ask (and it used to encode just fine). It's a very basic task considering everything else iDVD has been written to do, and crosscoding and re-encoding video is a basic functionality in QuickTime.
I'm not asking iDVD to prove the existence of dark matter in the universe; I'm just asking it to play a QuickTime movie properly. Which is what it's supposed to do.
There was a work-around, supplied by Apple, but it no longer works for me, so that's why I'm asking what worked for others.

H.264 pixel aspect ratio problem after update

Yesterday I updated Premiere Pro CC and Media Encoder CC to version 2014.2. But now I am having pixel aspect ratio problems with the H.264 codec when I export a 1080i50 sequence to PAL widescreen. The problem also seems to occur with other frames sizes.
I am using the same settings as usual with Aspect set to: D1/DV PAL Widescreen 16:9.(1.4587). However, VLC and Windows Media Player play the video with a 5:4 ratio. So it looks like the pixel aspect ratio information is not passed to Media Encoder or to the file.
This problem does not affect other codecs like AVI or MPEG-2, these are correctly displayed.
Is there anyone else having this problem? And more important, does anyone know a solution?

When creating files for computer/online playback (not editing), then best practice is to simply use square pixels with 1.0 Pixel Aspect Ratio, which will ensure that ALL players correctly display your video, no chance of problems.
Export as 1024x576 with 1.0 PAR and that is the square-pixel equivalent of PAL DV widescreen.
For NTSC users, I've seen it two ways, either 864x480 or 854x480.
Merry Christmas
Jeff Pulera

Aspect ratio problem with Quicktime Conversion from FCE HD 3.5

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