Down converting 4X3 to 16X9 anamorphic during capture

Is it possible to down convert SD 4X3 to 16X9 anamorphic during capture in FCP 7? If so, how?
Camcorder: Canon Vixia HV30.
Thanks,
bon

DOWNCOVERT? Downconvert means going from LARGER to smaller. HD to SD. You want to convert 4:3 into 16:9? Where is the extra information to fill the gaps coming from?
Nope, you need to capture, then enlarge the image to fill a 16:9 frame...and you will lose quality as you blow the image up about 33-50%...and you will lose the image on the top and bottom of the frame.
Shane

Similar Messages

Converting 4x3 to 16x9

Dear All,
I am working on FCP 6.0.2 and I just wanted to create an HD sequence out of JPEG images so I imported about 800 clips and made a sequence out of it. The sequence settings are : Frame size 1280x1080 and pixel aspect ratio is square and the compressor is HDV 1080i50.
The JPEG image size is 2496x1664. I did cropping in FCP...
Now the problem is that when I make a quicktime movie of this and play it, the screen shows one frame with image and the next one black and so on.....So what I see is a movie alternating between images and black frames....
If anyone knows about how to correct this problem then do let me know....
Hope to have help from the brilliant minds soon!!!

I'm assuming the frames are numbered sequentially. If so, use quicktime player to import an image sequence and then do whatever cropping and codec changing either in compressor or fcp.

16x9 Widescreen footage captured as 4x3

Since I upgraded from CS4 to 5.5, when I capture 16x9 Widescreen footage it shows on the source monitor as 4x3 (video is squeezed).
For every clip I capture I have to do an "interpret footage" and change the pixel ratio from 0.9191 to 1.2121.
I'm using the AJA Kona LSe capture card with the 5.5 drivers, and my footage is all SD 720x486 Wide.
AJA tech support tells me that Premiere has difficulty interpreting 16x9 footage (some work, some don't).
Also, when I grab a frame from 16x9 video previously captured using CS4, the still picture is 16x9 but not wide. So the subject in the picture is squeezed.
That seems to confirm that CS5.5 has problems interpreting footage. I didn't have those problems with CS4.
Is anyone else experiencing this?

I agree that it's not a big deal.
But I'm working on a documentary that includes several sections.
After a day of shoot, I often come back with footage that goes into several different bins.
I don't necessarily put that footage on the timeline right away, but I like to do the correction as soon as I capture it.
So I have to stop the capture every time to interpret the footage or keep track of where each clip went (and I have a lot of bins).
Not too difficult, but extra work.
Is Adobe aware of that issue and working on it?
Thanks!

4x3 DVDSP Menus from 16x9 anamorphic video

Title: 4x3 DVDSP Menus from 16x9 anamorphic video
Goal: Create 4x3 scaled videos from 16x9 anamorphic asset
Asset: NTSC - CCIR 601 / DV ( 720 x 480 ) from Sony DCR SR-300
Solution:
Create a sequence; cmd-0 to see settings;
Turn on Pixel Aspect Ratio anamorphic 16:9 ( this makes the Canvas look like wide screen )
Select custom frame size; Set WidthxHeight 480x480 ( Canvas now looks 4:3)
Because:
Pixels are 16:9 so while 640x480 is in 4:3 ratio, the pixels are wide so the frame is wide
Meaningfully mnemonically: 480 is three-quarters of 16 so reducing the frame width to 480 gives you fewer pixels wide but the wider pixels push the outside dimensions of the canvas to the 4:3 you need for the DVDSP menu display.
Caveat:
When loading a clip into the sequence, say No to setting the Seq Settings to the Clip settings.
You've customized the sequence and you don't want the clip to change you sequence customization.
Verification:
I saved this as a QT Ref Movie; loaded it to a DVDSP 4:3 Menu and it looked the way I expected.

4:3 Menus from 16:9 clips

Workflow for converting 4X3SD to 16X9 HD?

I have 4X3 SD material on tape. I'd like to convert it to 16X9 HD.
Can you give me a basic workflow regarding capture settings, sequence settings, etc? I realize cropping and repositioning will be part of the process.
Thanks in advance.

Correct. The HD Capture card will be doing the conversion for you. Far better quality than software conversion. Although I do recommend the AJA Kona 3 over the Decklink cards. It can capture SD to 20p or 1080i, and cross convert 720p to 1080i or the reverse. The Decklink cards cannot cross convert, or capture to 720p. Plus the upconvert process is easier with the Kona, in my experience. The Software is very straight forward.
By that I mean the 4X3 frame will be cropped at the top and bottom in order to fit the 16X9 HD frame.
You can either crop off the top and bottom, or capture as "pillar box" leaving black on the sides. I tend to crop off the top and bottom.
I may want to use the top part for some shots and the bottom for others (which I figured I do by keyframing).
In that case you will need to look at Compressor for this, or Instant HD...or a Terranex at a post facility.
Shane

Down Converting

Hello,
I'm using a G5 with final cut studio. I have two Sony Z1u cameras and recently purchased a Canon Xl-H1. With the Z1u's, it's easy to down convert. I just filmed some footage with the Canon 24p HDV and I can't seem to down convert when capturing. It keeps capturing it 16:9. I need it in 4:3. Does anyone know how to downconvert with the Canon Xl-H1 or how i can do in in Final Cut Pro to render it as 4:3 using cropping. I am not aware of how to follow through with the technique.
Thanks

Hello there,
Down-converting refers to the format of the video (HDV -DV), not the aspect ratio... When you capture your media (down-converted) with the Z1 doesn't it also come in as 16:9/Anamorphic?
When you say... render it as 4:3 using cropping, do you mean that you want it cropped top and bottom (letterboxed, which will happen automatically when you drop your 16:9 media onto a 4:3 timeline), or do you mean that you want to scale in and lose the sides of your image (pan-and-scan)?

FNC photog Working between 4x3 and 16x9, almost daily needs help!

Will be working with 16x9 and 4x3 for some time. What is the best and safest way to change 4x3 to 16x9 for broadcast standard quality. Working mainly between footage shot shot on beta sp 400A's in 4x3 and have now switched to Panasonic AJ-HPX 2000 SD/HD camera and Panasonic HVX 200 P2 camera. Both of which shoot on 16 or 32 gb p2 cards. I shoot for the Fox News Channnel and all of our photogs are experiencing difficulties between these formats, so we would just like a formula we can use every time we have go between the two. Right now we broadcast in sd, but shoot 16X9 or squeeze as they call it with the 200 camera. That will change in Feb. 09, I believe. Any info would be greatly appreciated as this will be used by about 60 different photogs.
thanks
Brian

Yeah, I really question the wisdom of trying to make network policy on an Internet forum. That seems kinda nuts to me.
But we can still treat this question as a sort of academic exercise.
An alternative to shooting 4x3 safe inside 16x9 is to settle on 14x9 as your single aspect ratio during the transitionary period. I used to work pretty closely with WFAA-TV in Dallas during their SD-to-HD transition about ten years ago, and they used 14x9 in those days. Slightly letterboxed on 4x3, slightly pillarboxed on 16x9, but the same picture on all formats. Whether being consistent in terms of framing between widescreen and old-school presentations is worth the hassle of shooting 14x9 safe and converting everything is left as an exercise for the reader.

4X3 in 16X9 timeline

I want to use 4X3 material in a 16X9 timeline. The former is DV; the latter DVPro50.
The way to do it would be to change the 4x3 footage to anamorphic using the “item properties” pull-down. The result would be the image being compressed to fill the 16x9 screen. I could then find an effect to stretch the image by 25%, back to looking normal.
The 2 problems with this are:
I can’t find an effect within FCP to do this. Maybe there's a 3rd party plug? Even if I do find a plug-in, I suspect the resulting image won’t be pristine. I’ll bet it would look noticeably softer than the native dvcpro50 footage.
Any suggestions?
G4 Powerbook; Sony 1500A Mac OS X (10.4.8)

look in the motion tab of the view when the video is loaded into the view
you'll want to click the distort triangle to expose aspect ratio and then use scale and or crop as well as center to reposition the image. yes it likely will go soft as you zoom to make the width of the 4:3 fit the 16:9

Dropped Frames During Capture

FCE HD is dropping frames during capture when I'm taking video from my Canon Video camera and the three DVD players I've been using. Any suggestions or ideas?
Here's my info:
- Didn't work for either of these setups:
- Canon to my iBook G4 via firewire
- DVD player to DVD converter via RCA cables to ibook via firewire
- My external Harddrive (LaCie 230 GB) is hooked up to my laptop via USB Drive.
- Easy setup configured to DV-NTSC or DV-NTSC-DV Converter dpending on capture device
Thanks in advance for the help

Hi Lisa,
Well, for starters you probably have less free space on your internal HD than you did a year ago - rule of thumb is keep at least 15%-20% free space on your drives, especially your system drive; more free space is better. Couple that with the fact that USB really can't keep up with the demands of video and it's easy to get dropped frames.
There's also the question of what else you've put on your machine since last year, whether or not you updated OSX or QT since then, if you have anything else running when you capture ... there could be lots of factors.
Have you ever run a maintenance utility on your Mac - eg. MacOSXCocktail, MacJanitor, Onyx, etc ?

No sound captured during Capture Now

First time in many moons using FCP. I'm capturing from a mini DV (Canon Eulura 70) using the Capture Now function. The problem is that it appears that no sound is being captured. I've read other posts about not hearing sound during capture... at the moment I'm using headphones connected to the camera and the sound is fine. I'd prefer to use the computer to monitor the sound but I cannot locate a checkbox anywhere to turn this feature on.
When I drop the captured clips onto the canvas no corresponding audio file appears in the timeline, and no audio plays during playback. I've checked the clip setting in log/capture and it's set to capture both video and audio. I've checked System Settings, and under Scratch disks it's set to capture video and audio separately. Audio playback in FCP is set to built-in audio. Sound is working fine in all other applications.
I've tried trashing the preference files but no effect. Also I tried to just capture audio, and as soon as I hit esc, FCP crashes... this is totally repeatable. I also noticed that on the clip setting tab there is a section with a bunch of sliders (7 in all)... don't know what they do, but they are all greyed out.
Camera works fine in iMovie...
Message was edited by: Ronald Dans1

There are no check boxes on that tab, only a pull down list entitled "Capture". The choices are Video and Audio, Video only, Audio only. I have it set to Video and Audio. Perhaps there are checkboxes in another version?

*** Question for down-converting Z1U or FX1 users

I am importing some HDV material that I am down-converting in the camera into DV into a sequence that is 720x480 anamorphic.
I want to guarantee that when people view the 16:9 footage on their square tv that it automatically is shown as letter-boxed and not stretched vertically. Currently, I am having problems because when I preview my 16:9 footage on a square tv, unless I set the tv to 16:9, it stretches the image. If the wrong client who doesn't know any better does this and it stretches it will look horrible. Is there any way to bring in down-converted footage and guarantee that it will be properly framed on a square tv.
Currently I am bringing in the footage and down-converting with the "squeeze" setting. Should I be using this, or the "letter box" setting? My understanding is that using the letter box setting will actually crop off the top/bottom of my 16:9 footage which ISN'T what I'm looking for.
Any assistance that anyone could give would be much appreciated!

Well, it's usually a bad idea to use 16:9 Pan-Scan & Letterbox because it depends on how your client has set the TV Shape setting on their DVD player.
If the DVD player is connect to a 16:9 TV (and therefore the TV Shape setting is 16:9), there is no issue - the anamorphic image fills the screen.
However, for 4:3 users, the TV Shape setting provides two choices: 4:3 Pan-Scan (sometimes labeled at 4:3 Normal) and 4:3 Letterbox. When you use the 16:9 Pan-Scan & Letterbox display mode in DVDSP, your footage will have the edges cropped off if the player is set to 4:3 Pan-Scan. The edges will be cropped off because you cannot specify Pan-Scan vectors in DVDSP or Compressor (Pan-Scan vectors being an element of the DVD spec that companies have been unable to implement). As you might be able to guess, if the player is set to 4:3 Letterbox, your footage gets letterboxed.
Now, this wouldn't be a problem except for 2 factors:
Most of the time, cropping the edges of your video is not what you intended (it makes you look bad when something important is cut off)
Because most commercial DVDs use the 16:9 Letterbox display mode - where it doesn't matter which 4:3 TV Shape setting is used, the 16:9 image is letterboxed - most users don't know the difference between the two 4:3 settings. This can lead to unexpected results when you send them a disc encoded as 16:9 Pan-Scan & Letterbox. (And let's just say that most users are really confused by the setup menus on DVD players)
Of course, I preface all of this by saying usually. If it's worked for you in the past - or you compose your shots in such a way that cropping off the edges is no big thing - don't let me cramp your style.

Audio echo during capture CS3

During capture I get this terrible audio echo. If I go into the Windows mixer panel and set a slider called Premiere down to zero that will stop it. But if I then wish to hear the audio (from Premiere) after the capture I have to turn it up again. Sureley this is not the correct way to do it.
It seems as though the input audio is being monitored and the delayed Premiere output at the same time. This will only happen when the capture screen is open.
Anyone any idea how to stop this without constantly playing with the mixer?
Very annoying.

Problem is only while the capture screen is being used. The delay is very pronounced.
So, your Captured footage does not exhibit this echo. Is that correct? Obviously, you have a latency issue. What are your Audio playback settings? I would also wonder about the Matrox card, as these have caused all sorts of Audio issues, though I do not recall any with Capture.
If the first statement is true, then your footage is clean and good, and all you have to do is adjust the necessary settings during Capture.
Good luck,
Hunt

Video Stuttering during capture

I know this has been discussed in the past, but I cannot seem to find it; hope someone will help.
I am capturing old VHS tapes using Premiere 10 media capture via a Canopus ADVC55. The clips I'm transferring suffer from stuttering during capture (approx every 1 sec). I seem to remember that this indicated a timing issue from stretched tape or something. I hate to think that's the case. Could it be anythng else, and is there a workaround?
Thanks,
Julian

Steve,
I had an informative (but ulimately depressing) talk today with an engineer at Grass Valley. He said that the ADVC55 adherence to the NSTC spec is quite tight, and suggested I try another source as an input to the device. I plugged in a Sony camcorder and it converted seamlessly. He suggested the VHS player (or tape) doesn't meet the NSTC spec, and that I try another VHS player that may be tighter to the spec. If is also possible that my old VHS camcorder originally used to create the tapes didn't meet the spec. The ADVC-300 contains time-base correction that could alleviate this, but is substantially more costly. The cheap Diamond A/V converter probably isn't as sensitive to the spec, and is therefor more forgiving.
All interesting, but in the end, I have a fairly expensive device that won't help me. I guess I can look for another VHS player to try, but it sounds like a lot of effort for a long shot. Any ideas on a work-around? I'm stuck.
By the way, MediaInfo shows the following for the Diamond device:
Format: YUU
Codec: UYUY http://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/en/bf/amm/http://
Frame Rate: 59.940 fps
Resolution: 480x720
The link must be to the developer.
Julian

Dropped Frames and "freezing" during capture

I'm having a problem capturing video....it mostly captures although I get "freezes" where the sound continues but the video frames are dropped. If I leave the Quit capture upon dropped frames I can't capture too much as the freezing happens about every 15 to 30 seconds. Any help?
I'm having the same problems on both computers and also when I try to set the hard drive as the scratch as opposed to my external HD.
MacBook Pro (INtel)
iMac (800mhz)
FCE 2.0
Thanks in advance
Zack

Tom,
Same issue here. I've been capturing well with the same setup months ago and have not had this issue until now.
The video "freezing" happens during writing to the hard disk during capture. Using Activity Monitor, you can see 2 second "bursts" of data written to disk every 30 seconds. The video in the capture window freezes during these bursts.
Activity Monitor also shows zero bytes of data being written to disk in between the bursts, but that doesn't seem right, because I know the video is being captured. (You can play it back in FCE)
The freezing can be seen during capture and when playing the captured clip in the viewer. Audio playback is fine.
I tried 3 different Scratch Disk settings with the same results:
External USB 2.0
External FW 800
Internal disk on PowerMac
Dual 2.0 GHz G5 (Cheese-Grater) PowerMac
10.4.9
FCE HD 3.0
QT Pro 7.1.5
3.5 GB Ram (100% set for FCE in settings)
FCE Easy Setup for DV Converter
Canopus ADVC110 converter
Analog VCR input into Canopus (Default settings on Canopus)
Firewire connection from Canopus to Mac
I couldn't find anything in your FCE Editing Workshop book that could help with this either. Everything worked fine a few months ago.
Dual 2Ghz G5, 12" G4 iBook, Sunflower iMac Mac OS X (10.4.9)

How to down convert iMovie HD imported in Full 1920x1080 to Large 960x540

I have a Canon HD camcorder which captures video in 1080i format. I have been downloading my movies in iMovie using the Full - 1920x1080 option instead of the Large - 960x540 option.
But now I am running out of space!!! Also I don't see a big difference in quality between the two formats.
I want to down convert all my downloaded movies to Large - 960x540 format ... Can someone tell me how to do that in iMovie. I have already deleted the movies in my camcorder. Help!

I don't think that what you're trying to do is possible without reimporting the footage, which I understand is deleted. You can down convert to 540 on export without a problem from 1080, but you original footage will remain 1080.
The good news is external HDs are really cheap these days, so you can pick one up to store your footage with a very minor investment. Now you can switch to importing 540 as Apple recommends and you'll save a ton of space, and processing time, moving forward. As you've already seen, the quality difference is very minimal versus the space and processing cost.

Down converting 4X3 to 16X9 anamorphic during capture

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