Easy letterboxing next to 4:3 footage....

The apple manual says you need to drop a 16:9 sequence into a 4:3 sequence to letter box the wide screen. When adding 4:3 footage to the 4:3 sequence, it pastes in squished. Here is a simple workaround once it's squished.
Set 4:3 footage>Motion>Distort>Aspect Ratio to 0.
Copy footage.
Paste Attributes>Distort on all affected 4:3 clips.
Wa-la, everything good.

Pages v5+ wants to be installed as /Applications/Pages.app on Mavericks. If you had Pages ’09 v4.3 installed prior to the v5+ (downgrade - cough), the installation process moves v4.3 into /Applications/iWork ’09 as Pages.app.
If you have Pages ’09 v4.3 installed on 10.8.5, just grab the Pages.app, put it on a USB stick. On Mavericks, you can create the /Application/iWork ’09 directory, and then from the USB stick, copy Pages.app into that location. I would then run Disk Utility to verify/repair permissions on your Maverick boot drive. Once you have both Pages applications on board Mavericks, drag and drop the pages icon from each respective application to your your dock.
You will always need to right-click and choose Pages (4.3) from your Open with submenu, or open the v4.3 document via the Pages ’09 application. Pages v5.2 will now open a v4.3 document without warning you about the internal document architecture conversion. Once it does that, the document is useless to v4.3, without an Export to Pages ’09.
Because Pages ’09 v4.3 and Pages v5+ embed the creating application name as Pages.app in the .pages document, double-clicking either document will attempt to launch the default Pages located at /Application/Pages. So, short of removing v5+, it will be the default application to open your documents.
Realize that Pages v5+ is not Pages ’09 v4.3 with added improvements. It is not. As an entirely new application and document architecture, it loses about a 100 features to its precedessor, and may alter your persona while struggling with its confusing interface and lost features.

Similar Messages

Letterboxing when using 16:9 footage in 4:3 project...

Hi,
I have a project here that is DV-NTSC-720x480-4x3.
Now when I import footage that is 720x480 / 4x3 it is displayed properly e.g. this file:
Codec : MPEG-2 Video
Codec profile : Main@Main
Codec settings/Matri : Standard
Bit rate : 9800 Kbps
Bit rate mode : CBR
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 480 pixels
Display Aspect ratio : 4/3
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Standard : NTSC
Chroma : 4:2:0
Interlacement : Top Field First
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.946
When I try to import footage that is 720x480 / 16x9, PP Pro automatically does a Pan & Scan on the footage e.g. on this file:
Codec : MPEG-2 Video
Codec profile : Main@Main
Codec settings/Matri : Standard
Bit rate : 8000 Kbps
Bit rate mode : CBR
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 480 pixels
Display Aspect ratio : 16/9
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Standard : NTSC
Chroma : 4:2:0
Interlacement : Top Field First
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.772
Regarding this automatic Pan & Scan for 16:9 footage (in a 4:3 project) I have a few questions...
1. Am I right assuming that the pixels are "stretched" when doing a Pan & Scan on imported 16:9 footage (in a 4:3 project) ?
--> meaning: the quality is worse than using letterboxing ?
2. How can I apply letterboxing on 16:9 footage imported into a 4:3 project ?
--> I read the manual and it states that u can adjust that with the Motion properties Scale & Position but is there an automatic solution in PP Pro ?
--> I've adjusted the Scale to 75.5 % (which looks okay) but what is the correct percentage ?
3. Where can I change settings in PP Pro to put all 16:9 footage (in a 4:3 project) automatically in letterbox format ?
As always, thanx for your help in advance !
Mike

This is what I would do...
First my question is: are you working in HD or SD?
Second, make a new sequence. (make sure it prompts you to select what sequence you want). If you're working in SD (standard definition) select DV NTSC 48khz Anamorphic. This basically means, that you're working in 720x480 SD but with 16:9 ratio.
If you're working in HD. make a new sequence selecting: HDV - 1080 60i. HDV aspect ratio, by default, is already 16:9.
Thats all you should have to do. Don't distort each clip one by one. You'd be wasting time.
Oh, i just realized another thing. How you Captured the footage! This is crucial. If the footage is 16:9...how did you capture it?
let me know...
mo

Easy Set-Up Capturing Mini DV footage Sony TRV30

Hi -
I go back and forth and use iMovie for some quick and easy projects and for the longer more elaborate projects I use Final Cut Express.
It's been so long since I've imported footage into FCE that I can't remember my easy settings.I've tried a number of them and they don;t seem to work.
I have a Sony HandyCam with firewire and a firewire cable to a MacPro.
I know I can easily import into imovie then export a quicktime, but I'd rather have it straight away in FCE.
Can anybody give me the sequence and settings for capturing in FCE?
Thanks!
Anne Z

Hi Ann
Without knowing wether you are a NTSC or PAl. Try EASY SETUP--DV NTSC FIREWIRE BASIC or PAL FIREWIRE BASIC. If that does not work try easy setup--DV PAL or easy setup--NTSC or failing that use dv setup.
I hope that works...try trashing preferences..Something Tom Wolesky suggests
Justin... Durban.. South Africa

Is DV footage letterboxed in camera 4:3 footage?

Or is it 16:9? Used 60i Panasonic DVX camera. Not squeeze mode. I will edit in 4:3 if that is what the footage really is. Thanks.

Depends a little on which model DVX camera you have. (They changed it between models )
From memory and I hope I am correct... on my DVX 102A PAL - setting camera to Letterbox Mode will actually change the PAR to 1.42
ie Normal is .9 NTSC and 1.067 PAL
Letterbox is 1.2 NTSC and 1.42 PAL
If the footage is brought into a std project the footage must be interpreted to what it is according to the properties (as Jim states).

*** Do I choose "squeeze" or "letterbox" when down-converting HDV footage

I'm not sure which setting to choose here so I'm hoping somone can help. I have printed my HDV footage to tape and would like to bring it back into FCP down-converted. I'm working from the Sony HDV deck. I know to go to iLink and change the settings there, but do I change them to "squeeze" or "letterbox"?

What are you hoping to do with the downconverted footage?
If you'll need to make Anamorphic DVDs - or fill any type of 16:9 display, for that matter (even if it is from tape, projector or computer) - you're best off choosing "Squeeze."
You can then drop that footage into an Anamorphic timeline and be good to go.
If you choose letterbox, you'll have a 4:3 image with black bars as part of the image. I suppose that's not an issue if you're only producing material for 4:3 masters but considering how many 'how do I make my 4:3 material fit a 16:9 TV' threads we've had here in the last month, I'd personally avoid that.

I want it to letterbox!!

I've searched through these discussions and found only people who don't want iMovie to automatically letterbox their footage... Well, I DO want it to do mine (I do have the automatically letterbox option checked.) I imported an hour of footage, and then changed tape and imported another hour. (The footage was shot in 16x9 mode on my Sony DCR-TRV14E) When the import was finished I clicked on a clip to make it start letterboxing. It did this, and it took a long time, which I am familiar with. However when it finished, it had only letterboxed the second hour of footage I had captured even though both sets of footage were shot in exactly the same way. My question then is how to I make it letterbox this footage? Is there a way to tell it to do it if it didn't do it automatically? Adding the effect in Editing>Video Effects is not the same thing, this only adds a border, it does not squash the footage back down... Anyone have any ideas??
iMac 20" Core Duo 2Ghz Mac OS X (10.4.7) 250GB HD, 1.5GB RAM

Hi mishmumken,
I do have "automatic letterboxing" checked, and it did letterbox an hour long section of the capture, but didn't letterbox another section of it even though it was shot in exactly the same way... Maybe I'm misunderstanding something, but I need it to automatically letterbox, because my camera (when shooting in 16x9 mode) is not actually shooting in true 16x9. What it is actually doing is letterboxing the image. However, when I capture into iMovie, it captures it as 4x3 making the image look vertically stretched, so I need iMovie to letterbox it so it looks the same way as when I shot it. If I capture the same footage into an iMovie 16x9 project, it automatically pillarboxes the image, and doesn't stretch them horizontally.Incidentally, FC Express recognises the "virtual 16x9 effect" and captures accordingly, but it's not always convenient to use FC Express.
Anyway, I trashed the clips that didn't letterbox, and re-captured them, and it did automatically letterbox this time. I was just wondering if there was a way to force it to letterbox if it didn't do it by mistake. Not a big deal, I just wasted some time over the last couple of days, capturing and re-capturing and waiting for letterboxing.... I'll use FC Express next time I think!! Phew...

Strange letterbox. Why?

Hi,
I use a sony camera to capture fill scenes about a car race, this camera capture 16:9 but seems it 's not HD. there was nothing on the camera saying about HD. ( it's from a friend and i don't understand about cameras)
Anyway, l did capture all the movie using DV-Pal from easy setup.
On my browser l can see my sequence frame Size is 720 x 576 and all my movies are also with 720 x 576 ( i did capture 8 parts from the same tape using capture now )
My problem is:
some of those movies, they have like a letterbox and others don't. How can l fix it?
I PS: All my movie is on the timeline and almost ready.
II PS: I'm running on FCP 5
Thanks all of you guys

Hi:
Depending on the camera you can change the shooting mode: Anamorphic, Letterboxed and 4:3. Probably the camera operator changed something during shooting . . . nor probably, for sure he did!
You cannot change that now. All you can do is try to get all the footage look same format.
Two options:
- Work in a 4_3 letterboxed timeline: you have to down scale the real 16:9 footage (the not letterboxed takes) to fit "like" letterboxed.
- Work in a Anamorphic timeline: you must upscale your letterboxed takes to fill the space.
The first option keep the quality of all the takes. The second option will loose some quality in the upscaled takes.
And please take it easy, we didn't shoot that footage !!!! ;D
Alberto

Letterboxes, Stretching, and Aspect Ratio...

So heres my problem...
I'm filming on a Sony HD camera (in DV because I dont have the hard drive space for HD right now or the processing power sigh) in 16:9 aspect ratio.
I import it into FCP through iMovie because I can just tell it to capture everything easily and walk away while it does its thing.
Now, when I open a clip from a bin its cropped at a 16:9 ratio (thats good... no letterboxes or anything, just the footage like that). Thats what I want. However, I can't get it to show like that in the viewer. It always has letterboxes, and its stretched when I don't choose Use Square Pixels.
When I convert to a QT movie, its still stretched lengthwise.
I'm assuming I'm doing something terribly wrong here, but not being completely versed in FCP (yet) I'm having trouble fiddling around trying to get this to work. Do you have any ideas?
(o yeah, I have it set on DV-NTSC Anamorphic... which I assume is what I want...)
Thanks for anyhelp you can offer

All right,... my embarassment level is pretty high right, now... having posted three times as of now .... but my problem wasn't as resolved as I thought it was.
I got rid of the letterboxes (yay) but I still have to deal with the pixels. Its fine in the canvas and the viewer when I click Square Pixels, but when they are off or when I convert to quicktime, they turn off and its stretched tall into a 3:2 ratio
Ideally, I'd like a 16:9 ratio for the quicktime movie.
Do you have any ideas (again)?

FCE + Sony HDR-SR12E - Easy Setup ??

Hi,
Using FCE 4.0.1 with a Sony HDR-SR12E and I understand I need to set the camera from 1920x1080 to 1440x1080 so that FCE is happy. But my question is which settings should I choose on the Easy Setup panel...
Format - Apple Intermediate Codec
Use - HDV-Apple Intermediate Codec 1080i50 or AVCHD-Apple Intermediate Codec 1440x1080i50 ??
Or even something else ?
Help please - Thanks Billy

From the Apple's website:
Added AVCHD Easy Setups
Final Cut Express now includes AVCHD Easy Setups to support ingesting AVCHD footage using the Apple Intermediate Codec. The Easy Setups are:
AVCHD-Apple Intermediate Codec 1440x1080i60
AVCHD-Apple Intermediate Codec 1920x1080i60
AVCHD-Apple Intermediate Codec 1440x1080i50
AVCHD-Apple Intermediate Codec 1920x1080i50
You no longer need to use the HDV-Apple Intermediate Codec Easy Setups when ingesting AVCHD footage.
Now, if you live in an area where is in use PAL, choose AVCHD 1920x1080i50.
Regards,
Armando.

Burned video footage, but no video when playback

Hi,
I would like to backup high-def video footage on disc. My first attempt succeeded in creating a dvd that played back with the dvd player but could not be imported back into FCE. (There were no .mov files on the disc, just separate audio and video folders).
Next I compressed the footage H.264 as an export file from FCE and then there was a .mov file on the disc. But when I attempted to import it back into FCE the audio played but no video.
The third attempt I exported Quicktime files from FCE but did not check the box "Make Movie Self-contained". I burned the disc using IDVD onto a DVD-R. It played back fine but only when the external hard drive with the original .mov was plugged in. After disconnecting the hard drive, the disc just played back audio. No screen for video. When I attempted to import the file back into FCE I got the error message - "Movie clip #39 cannot be found." (The file wasn't named clip #39.)
I'm using FCE 4.01 on a OS X 10.4.11.
Suggestions?
Thanks.

Hi
I think that You may be not know that one can make two kinds of DVDs (burnings)
Video-DVD to be played on DVD-player (a very standardized way)
Data-DVD that can hold video too - but will NEVER play on a DVD-player/TV
Video-DVD has to be created via a Video encoding program as iDVD, DVD-Studio Pro or Roxio Toast™ and MUST contain at least two folders Video_TS and Audio_TS and the Audio_TS folder is empty BUT has to be here anyway. Video is encoded in a special sort of .mpeg2 code that suits DVD-player.
You can add to the Video-DVD an extra folder with a H.264 version of Your movie too if You like but then You also has to do some calculation so that the space on the DVD will be enough.
HD-DVD - No there are near to Zero (an historical type existed for a very short time and coud only be played on a few Toshiba HD-DVD players)
DVD - is as standard max. SD-Video (as on old CRT-TVs)
But here is some notes I've made reg. FCE/P to iDVD work.
FCE/P to iDVD
Several things
• How to go from FCE/P to iDVD
• Free space on Start-up hard disk
• Encoding
• Brand and type of DVDs used
• Burn speed set
• iDVD BUG
• Chapters
How to go from FCE/P to iDVD I do
• Disable Screen and Energy saver
• IMPORTANT --> FIRST in FinalCut - Mix Down Audio under Sequence Menu / Render Only / Mixdown
• Export out as a QuickTime .mov file
• Select with Mark - Chapter Mark
• Not as Self-Contained (not important but saves time and space)
• NO QUICKTIME CONVERSION (IMPORTANT)
This QT.mov file I import into iDVD from within iDVD.
Free space on Start-up hard disk
I set a minimum of 25GB (for Mac OS and iDVDs temp files)
Encoding
• I use Pro Quality encoding
Brand and type of DVDs used
• I use Verbatim
• I use DVD-R
Burn speed set
• I set down this to x4 (or x1)
iDVD BUG
• One can not go back to movie-project for any alterations and then go back to
the iDVD project. It will notice and ask You to either Up-date or Cancel. Neither
of them will work.
Medicine - Start a brand new iDVD project.
Use of Chapters
• I only use a to z and 0 to 9 in naming them. NO other symbol/letter !
• NO Chapter-mark at very beginning - iDVD NEEDS TO set this by it self
• No Chapter marks in or within two seconds from a transition
(Way around this last one - Export movie as QT full quality and NO Chapter marks
Import this into a new Movie-project and now You are free to set C-Ms where You want
them except at very beginning - still)
Material used to build movie
• video - I use streamingDV (or convert all other to this eg .mp4, .avi, .wmv etc)
• audio - I use .aiff 16-bit 48kHz or from Audio-CD (44.1kHz) - no .mp3 or direct from iTunes
• photos - I use .jpg - no .bmp etc
Trash iDVD pref file and run Repair Permissions - and have a re-try.
from post ??
May not be relevant, but I had the same problem with iDVD, where burned DVDs showed a green screen. It was cured by quitting Quicksilver and Quickeys as well as disabling sleep and screensaving
Yours Bengt W

FCP 7.02 and ProRes Easy Setups

Hi
My issue is that none of the Apple Pro Res Easy Setups that were installed during setup in my Library/Application Support/Final Cut Pro System Support/Custom Settings folder show up in the list of available Easy Setups in the application.
If I go through the motions of creating a new Easy Set up (combining Sequence Preset, Capture Preset etc in the Audio Video Settings) it saves to the same folder and appears in the list. But none of the ProRes setups do. It's long list too ... and I need many of them (University Media Lab), so having to rebuild them all will take ages...
It's important for my students to go through the motions of selecting an appropriate Easy Set up so that they don't get presented with the option of adjusting a sequence setting which was created by virtue of having an incorrect Easy Setup for the type of footage they are importing. A lot of the time they choose badly!
I can't figure out why these Easy Set Ups don't show up ...
Yes, I've restarted, reinstalled on another machine, checked the manual and so on...
Does anyone have any ideas? Does anyone else see a list of 100 or so ProRes Setups?
Thanks
Lee

In easy setup you limit the list with the use and rate popups.
Well yes, but here If I select "ALL" for Format and Rate I can't see any ProRes Setups in the main list.
If I specifically choose "Apple ProRes 422 " in the Format field the Use and Rate drops downs grey out and I get a 23.98/ 1440 x 1080 R\ProRes set up.
Seeing as there are dozens of ProRes 422 / 444 / LT/ HQ / Proxy setups in the Custom Settings folder (or in the "Application/Additional Easy Setups" depending on install options) I don't understand why I can't see them.
True... FCP will conform a Sequence to the correct specs if I drop a ProRes Proxy file into a ProRes 422 HQ sequence .... but it's hardly confidence inspiring. I much prefer to set things up properly from the get go.
Looks as if I'll have to build my own ProRes Variations ....???
Thanks
Lee

Footage that makes FCP choke and die...

I was handed footage on a Panasonic tape to be included in a project. When I sit down to edit this segment, everything looks fine except for a 30 second bit 2 minutes into the tape. When playing it through the timeline Final Cut starts dropping frames. Eventually I get a screen full of crazy colored pixels (like the whole screen just artifacted) and Final Cut refuses to do anything at all.
Looking at the file in QuickTime it plays fine until this problem area and then stops but the counter keeps going. If left to run it never recovers. However, if I force quit, reopen, and being playing just a couple seconds after the affected area, it works fine.
The footage looks fine on the tape when playing back. So, now I'm going to try to dump just that bit again.
Any ideas what may be causing this?
Thanks!
~Luke

I am capturing to an Dedicated Media internal drive. It doesn't seem to be a connection problem because Final Cut didn't warn me of dropped fames durning capture and the next 40 minutes of footage looks fine.
My drive was filling up, but I still had at least 20 gigs on it (not nearly recommended, but enough for capture, I thought). And if it got messed up because the drive was too full, it should have had more problems toward the end and not just at the start.
Still confused, but it seems to be working now.
If anyone else has any ideas I'd love to hear them, but I'll say this thing is answered... sort of <smile>
Thanks again!
~Luke

From TV Aspect to Letterbox?

I have several tapes to import which are in TV format. I'd like to edit them to letterbox. For some clips, the main subject matter is at the bottom, hence I need to trim the top off. For others, I want to see the imagery at the top and lose the bottom. Will Final Cut Express let me do this? If not, might Pro or even iMovie HD? Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.
Sawtooth G4, 576 MB RAM Mac OS X (10.2.x)
Sawtooth G4, 576 MB RAM Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Hey,
If you import your project to iMovie, and cut your video into different peices (one clip for instance having the important image on the bottom, and soforth) the Letterbox effect will allow you to apply the letterbox mask, and adjust your footage in each clip so as to see the important images. Also, you might try a letter box mask layer in FinalCut, and add motion to your underlying footage when you need to see a different part of the video, this will probably give you the slickest look. Kind of like a reverse pan-and-scan.
Hope that's helpful!
-PMVE
PowerMac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.9) My computer has 1.5 GB of DDR SDRAM

Is there a way to display the actual time footage was shot?

I have two cameras I used for footage and they are not continuous so I need to find an easy way to quickly get the footage close to where they need to align. It would be great if there was a way to display that actual time of day in hours/minutes/seconds based on the cameras clock instead of just timecode, which doesn't give my much of a reference of the camera's time. Does anyone know of a way to display camera time?

There is a somewhat tedious workaround that will help (perhaps, since I don't know what your footage is).
Load in all the clips you plan to use in your edit. Select them one at a time and click File\Timecode and type in your "time of day" clock timecode and Set at Beginning. Click OK.
This will then change the Media Start from 00:00:00:00 for every clip to whatever you type in.
If anyone finds, or knows of, a way to do this automatically, I'd be very interested to hear about it!
HTH,

How Do I Tell FCE to use 16:9 Automatically?

I use a Canon camcorder and when I've imported movies using FCE 4.0.1, I generally haven't had problems with aspect ratios.
At this point all the video I shoot is in 16:9, but sometimes I'm using video a friend shoots. The aspect ratio was only a problem with one project in the past, and I can't remember what I did to fix it, but it has been working.
Today I took a video file from my friend. It was in 16:9, 1920x1080, a .mov file, but I'm not sure what the "under the hood" details are. I imported this file into FCE, then dragged it from the browser to the timeline, did my work, and when exporting, noticed that what I seem to be getting is a 16:9 box with letterboxing and the 16:9 video within that letter boxing -- so I'm squashed and look even more overweight than before.
I did some experimenting and found when I'm working with my own video, as I usually do, it shows up in the canvas window as one 16:9 image, but with my friend's video, it showed up as 4:3 - which I didn't notice because it was letterboxed and the black just seemed to be background.
I found that if I started a new project and dragged in video I knew was 16:9, then deleted that, then dragged in my friend's video, it was treated as true 16:9. So it seems that FCE determines the aspect ratio of a project according to the first clip dropped into the timeline.
What can I do to tell FCE: "Make all my projects 16:9 unless I say otherwise?" And is there some way, manually, to tell FCE to make a project either 16:9 or 4:3? The only way I can find to control the aspect ratio used in a project is by which video I first drop on the timeline. This is awkward, since it means to start, sometimes I'll have to find and import a clip of the raio I need, then delete it, and start with my project.

Yes you can change the Sequence manually and it is done by selecting an Easy Setup first then starting a NEW Project or Sequence.
There are a variety of Easy Setups to works with various footage from DV, HDV anf AVCHD cameras.
You are correct regarding dropping the first clip into the Timeline, usually you see a message asking to conform the Sequence if it's different to the existing one.
This is an Auto setup of the Easy Setup.
Doing it manually means you know exactly what the camera is sending to FCE and what the FCE Sequence needs to be set to, prior to starting editing.
Al

Easy letterboxing next to 4:3 footage....

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