Can you help me solve my aspect ratio issue?

Question

Hey guys,
I'm posting this in hopes that someone can help me solve an aspect ratio issue with a project that I have to finish by tomorrow.
I'm trying to avoid having to re-edit the entire thing.
I shot the project with my Nikon D7000 DSLR. in 720p 30p (29.97)
I am running Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 (the trial version).  I have the full version of Adobe Premiere Pro CS3.
The reason I was working with the trial is that CS3 can't handle the H.264 MOVs that the D7000 records.
You can work with a timeline, but if you try to export anything, it never works.  I always have to convert my footage to ProRes MOVs with MPEG Streamclip before I can work with them is CS3.  That takes a lot of time and a lot of hard drive space.  After much research, I found out that CS5 is the way to go for DSLR footage.  I just need to save up my pennies for the upgrade.
So I thought I'd edit this short (1 minute) project with the trial to see how CS5 works with the D7000 footage.
Upon installing the trial program, I found that the project presets were limited.  I knew this ahead of time because it's clearly stated on the Adobe's website.
But I wasn't aware how limited they are.
Since "DSLR 1280x720p 30p" is not an option with the trial, I was going to use HDV 720p 30p.  But that was not an option either!
So basically, my only option for 16x9 30p was "DV NTSC Widescreen".  It's my understanding that this is 864x480 (in square pixel aspect ratio) or 720x480  (in widescreen pixel aspect ratio)   I needed the output file to be 864x486.  I downsized the footage to 69% in the "Video Effects: Motion" setting so it looked correct in the project.  I didn't think about those extra 6 pixels until I outputed the file and saw thin black lines on the top and bottom.  My guess is that Premiere is adding black pixels because my project is technically 720x480 (1.2121)
Any thoughts on how I can get a clean 864x486 export?  I'd rather not re-edit the whole thing...which I would have to do in CS3 after I spent a few hours converting the original files in MPEG Streamclip.  I don't know if there is a way to export something out of CS5 and then open a new project in CS3 to make this work.
Thanks in adavance!
- Jordan

Answer 1

On export, just crop a few pixels off of each side; that'll let the image scale correctly to the output frame size without black bars.
I'm not running the trial, but you should still be able to create a custom sequence preset using the Desktop editing mode. Just switch over to the General tab when you create a new sequence, and choose "Desktop" from the editing modes. Set the rest of the parameters as you need them.
Even easier: once you've imported your footage, just drag a clip to the New Item icon at the bottom of the project panel; a sequence will be created matching your footage parameters. You can edit at full-resolution, and then export to your desired frame size when complete--you'll probably still need to crop a few pixels (in the Export Settings window) to eliminate the black bars.