Converting 16:9 to 4:3 in Final Cut

I shot some video using an HD camera and when I captured the footage it came in in 16:9 format. Is there a way to change it from 16:9 to 4:3 in Final Cut? Any assistance would be greatly appreciated
DJ

…doing this of course will degrade your footage since your pixels will be inflated.
actually, if you inflate the pixels with helium instead of air, they will look better, though the image will appear a little "lighter"
But seriously, in acutality, it depends on how you do it, and you may not have to scale the clips beyond 100%. If you shot correctly, the footage should be full-frame anamorphic, and not have the letterbox bars embedded in the 4:3 frame. If you are getting 4:3 clips with embedded letterbox bars, make sure the downconvert on the camera/deck is set to squeeze and not letterbox. Anyway, if you have 16:9 clips in a 4:3 sequence, they will automatically letterbox. These can be scaled up to fill the frame without actually exceeding 100%.
However, FCP will stubbornly interpret the 16:9/4:3 relationship and always letter box the clips, which I have always found extremely frustrating, since it is almost always my intention to pan&scan these clips instead. In order not to preserve the 1:1 clip-to-frame vertical resolution, I use the following workaround:
-un-check the anamorphic box for the source clips, or start with full frame widescreen clips in a widescreen sequence and un-check anamorphic in the sequence settings.
-You should see full-frame "squeezed" clips in a 4:3 sequence. If you attempt to change the aspect ratio in the distort controls to the correct -33.33, you will wind up with a letterboxed clip again - dang! However do not despair.
- leave the thing at full-frame 4:3 and take a look at the distort controls again. Notice that the x values all say 360 or -360 - change these numbers to 480 or -480 and the clip will stretch to the correct 16:9 aspect ratio without any vertical scaling.
If you actually have letterbox bars embedded in your source footage, you are hosed as far as not having to scale up the footage to fiill the frame.
Hope this helps -
Max Average

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