Importing a 16:9 FCE movie converts to 4:3--help

I have just finished a DV 16:9 NTCS FCE project and I have been working on a 16:9 iDVD 6 project to house the movie. But, when I import the FCE movie, after exporting Using Quicktime (not Quicktime Conversion), and add to the DVD project it is squished to 4:3. I have read several posts about this issue but I am still a little confused. Is there any way to keep the 16:9 aspect ratio in iDVD? If not, is there anything I can do to make a DVD with my 16:9 footage without it getting squished into 4:3? Please, any help is greatly appreciated.

have a quick question about Anamorphicizer. What does the final film look like on a 4:3 screen?
The Anamorphicizer makes a anamorphic 16:9 DV movie with the appropriate tag as if it came from an iMovie 16:9 DV project.
What is important is how does iDVD and your DVD player treat that movie when it is played on a 4:3 TV set.
95%+ of the time, it is letterboxed. iDVD sets the "flag" for 16:9 content, and allows your DVD player to choose letterboxing or pan-n-scan. Most people choose letterboxing on their DVD players, so it plays fine. Many commercial 16:9 DVDs force letterboxing. If if looks cropped instead of letterboxed, check your DVD player settings.
There is a way to edit DVD images and force letterboxing, but with the current settings in iDVD6 I don't bother. If you use a 16:9 theme, however, make sure your buttons, etc., fit in the standard 4:3 portion, as iDVD sets the menus only to pan-n-scan, which crops the image instead.
If you really want to dig in deeper look here:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=1625591&#1625591
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=2065249&#2065249
John B
PS- did you "uncheck" "Automatic DV Pillarboxing and Letterboxing" in your iMovie import preferences before importing the FCE movie into an iMovie 16:9 DV project?

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How to export/convert FCE movies into AVCHD format?

I have read a number of topics addressing similar questions but haven't yet found a satisfactory explanation of why it is not simple to do the opposite of what the Log and Transfer function does when importing AVCHD footage in FCE.
The footage shot by camcorders is heavily compressed (my Sony camcorder generates 24 Mbps -that's BIT, not BYTE, per second- at its highest rate), thanks to their on-board processor (BIONZ in the case of my camera: http://www.sony.com.sg/microsite/dslr/technologies/bionz.html). Yet, when played by hardware (such as the camcorder itself) on a HD-TV, the movies look gorgeous. Hence, this is a perfectly acceptable compression. And it does not take an enormous amount of memory. For instance, a ~10 min sequence encoded at 17Mbps on my camcorder occupies ~2GB.
However, once imported by FCE, each frame is individually extracted for ease of editing, and the size explodes. So exporting the resulting edited movie (in 1080HD) as a QuickTime movie is a recipe for rapid hard drive saturation (and YouTube export failure). I have tried several codecs offered by FCE (H.264, mp4) but the resulting compressed videos are still humongous (North of 5 GB for the example I mentioned).
It would seem that what the BIONZ processor achieves in real-time should be within reach of a modern CPU at a much slower pace (we are used to several hours of rendering, aren't we?). Yet, that is not the case. Is there a good reason for that?
Thanks for your comments.

Tom,
I first noticed it when looking at the videos created by FCE (that was the origin of my post) played in QT. Usually I play them at the default size chosen by QT for my screen, which is something like 1400 x whatever.
The problem (in QT) occurs at any viewing size. It is of course less apparent at smaller size, but it's there.
Then having figured out that I would not improve the output, I looked at the sequence in FCE. Looking at the video played in the Canvas, the jagged edges are there. Of course to see them well, it is best to zoom a bit, but they are there at any size.
Having figured this out, I tried to reimport the original footage using Log and Transfer. The window that opens has a preview, and I saw the jagged edges there too (whatever size the preview panel was set to). I could not find any settings that I could play with to avoid this problem.
My naive conclusion is that FCE does not know how to handle 60i footage as "well" as my TV does. I am ready to believe that in reality FCE does a more accurate job of rendering the two fields into a single frame, but as a viewer, I prefer the rendering of my TV. And since both engines have been designed by humans, I would tend to say that the engineers of my Samsung TV had a better grasp of what is a good rendering of a 60i footage than did the engineers at Apple (or elsewhere) who wrote FCE.
Now, I may be missing some basic thing here, and I am ready to learn.
BTW, the jagged edged effect I am seeing is what is shown on the first picture of the wikipedia page you pointed me to.

Import MOD files to FCE

OK - I replaced my Sony handicam with a Panasonic because the Best Buy folks told me that it would be completely compatible with a Mac; however, I can't get FCE to see the files at all.
Here is a picture of the files that I see on the camera:
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4022/45290896193690725e08o.png
I assume the two .mod files are the movie files, right? How do I get them to work with FCE?

Skalicky: You said:
"FCE works extremely well with a few common recording formats. It's only when people purchase a camcorder before reading up on exactly what is involved to edit the material that you get problems."
I can still return my camcorder for a full refund. But all of the other ones that I've looked at use MPEG file format which has the same problems. All of the Sonys and JVC's are that way, as far as I know. Is there something else out there that would play nice with FCE? If so, I'll return this one and go get it.
I don't want to have to import to iMovie, create a movie there, export as Quicktime (which takes forever if there's a lot of video) then import to FCE. That seems like a lot of effort for something that should happen more easily.
I do understand that I can pay $20 for the MPEG-2 converter, and maybe I'll just do that.

How to import .mpg files into FCE ?

I have succesfully installed the MPEG StreamClip & flip4mac into my iMac. So now I can both play wmv files on my iMac as well as importing wmv files into iMovie & FCE.
But now I have another problem:
1) How do I play mpg files on my iMac ?
2) How do I bring import mpg files into FCE ?
Thank you.

R. Mitchell Fore wrote:
QTPro gives you many more capabilities than the free player, but I don't think you need it to do anything you've described. You DO need the MPEG-2 Playback component. I'd start there, then see if you need any of the options provided by QTPro.
Hi there,
I have purchased the MPEG-2 Playback component from the Apple Store.
I can now convert the mpg files to mov using the MPEG StreamClip.
However, I cannot playback the original mpg files using QuickTime Player. I can only playback the original mpg files if I click on the mpg file then goto more info & change open with MPEG StreamClip.
But how do I open with QuickTime MPEG-2 playback ? I do not even know where the OS installed the MPEG-2 Playback component to ?
Thanks

How to import 1080i60 footage in FCE?

This is the continuation of a former question where I was wondering about the crappy results of exporting a sequence from FCE. Turns out that the problem occurs much earlier, during import.
So here it goes: I have a Sony CV550V camcorder recording in 1080i60 AVCHD. I use FCE Log and Transfer to import the footage. At this early stage ALREADY, I can see the fields offset with respect to one another in the Log and Transfer preview window. If I look at the footage by connecting my camcorder to my HD TV, I see no such artifact.
I looked at the FCE manual, tried all options of the Log and Transfer window (ZERO as far as I can see), but it does not seem that I have any choice on how FCE imports 1080i60 AVCHD footage. Am I doomed? I have heard from users of Sony Vegas software for instance, and they do not have such artifacts...
Thanks for your advice.

"Completely wrong" is a bit harsh, but indeed the whole issue is addressed in threadID=2497894 "How to export/convert FCE movies into AVCHD format?"

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Ahhhhhhh! It's starting to make sense now. If the CD was properly formatted as an "Audio CD", the tracks should be recorded at 44.1khz. You can use QuickTime Pro, iTunes, SoundTrack Pro (any several other apps) to convert the tracks from the CD to AIF, 48khz, 16 bit Stereo.
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Importing QuickTime, WMV, and MPG movies

Is it possible to import QuickTime, WMV, or MPG movies into
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Hi again
I've personally not encountered a need for converting.
However, on her blog, Silke Fleischer (Former Adobe Captivate
Product Manager) talks about a converter that may be recommended.
It's called SoThink Video Converter and you may examine or order it
by visiting the site.
Link
to Silke's blog post
Link to SoThink.com
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Importing H.264 into FCE without decoding/re-encoding. How?

QuickTime cannot open my Handycam VOB files (mpgv/a52) so I'm using ffmpegX to convert them to H.264 (4000+ kbps). when I import the H.264 files into FCE, FCE insists on decoding the files, taking a long time to do so and producing very large in-project media files. I tried converting to the DV format; same problem.
I seem to remember with iMovie that one could place their media files into the project package in a specific format and iMovie wouldn't re-encode them. if I'm importing H.264 files into FCE, what format should they be exactly (video and audio), and how could I import them into an FCE project without FCE decoding/re-encoding them? I'd prefer to use H.264/Dolby+AC3 if possible.
sincerely,
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Ok, you should be converting directly to DV or Apple Intermediate Codec if you intend to edit the video in FCE. Not to H.264 and then importing the H.264 into FCE. You're going from one highly compressed format to another highly compressed format and then FCE is trying to render it into something it can edit.
Also, you can't directly import 5.1 audio into FCE. Even though FCE supports up to 99 audio tracks in a project, you can only import or export a single stereo pair at a time. There are ways to trick it out, but you can't do 5.1 all at once directly in FCE.
Have you tried MPEG Streamclip instead of ffmpegX to do your conversions?

How to get FCE movie into iDVD?

Hi Folks!
I have a movie that I created in FCE and would like to burn it onto a DVD. When I open iDVD, I don't seem to have access to the movie file that I created. iDVD looks for the file inside iLife. Is there a way I can put the FCE movie into iLife, or is there another way I can burn a DVD from my FCE file?
Thanks very much!
Vixter

iDVD looks in your /Movies folder (not 'inside iLife' as you mentioned).
When you export your movie from FCE, save it to your /Movies folder. Then it will show up in the iDVD Media pane, under the Movies folder.
You can also import your movie into iDVD by doing *File > Import > Video* or by dragging the movie (from wherever it is saved on your hard drive) onto the _iDVD main window_ or a _drop zone_ in an iDVD template. Don't try to drop it into the iDVD Media pane - that won't work.

Trouble importing .MPG files to FCE HD

I'm trying to import .MPG files into FCE HD, but I just get an error message "unknown file". The same happened when I tried to import to iMovie. The footage is from a friend's camera so I don't know any more details. The files are codec MPEG-2 Video, AC3 and 720 × 576 if that helps...
Would be grateful for any help!

The files are codec MPEG-2 Video, AC3 and 720 × 576
You can't import this into FCE or iMovie, neither application supports MPEG2 video.
It would be best if you can find out & tell us the specific make & model camcorder your friend used. And even better what settings he used in the camcorder when he made the video(s).
Beyond that, MPEG2 files generally need to be converted to QuickTime, probably using Apple DV PAL codec (based on your 720x576 frame size, which is a PAL frame size). You can do this using MPEG Streamclip + the Apple QuickTime MPEG2 Playback component. But be aware - it's important to know your geography because North America uses NTSC whereas Europe uses PAL so you can choose the correct codec when you convert the files & select the correct Easy Setup in FCE.

FCE movie into iDVD?

Can a FCE movie be exported as a Quick Time movie into iDVD08? How?
When I try to put the QTmovie into iDVD the following message appears:
"The movie could not br opened."
"The file is not a movie file."

I am not able to get a movie into iDVD. Here is my procedure, which is the same as stated on pages 1015 and 1016 in the FCE user manual:
1) I open the FCE timeline of my 26 minute video.
2) I go to File > Export > Quick Time Movie.
3) In the window that opens, I name the movie, specify a location (FC Exp projects folder) and check "Make Movie Self Contained". Then click Save
4) After exporting completes, I find in the FCE projects folder TWO QTicons of my movie labeled av.mov1, av.mov 2, and a thumbnail showing the first frame of my FCE video.
5) In a iDVD page that I have prepared, with completed drop zones, I go to Project > Add Movie which puts a box with the words "Add Movie" on the iDVD page.
6) When I drag either of the two QT files listed above in 4) from the FCE projects folder onto the iDVD page they will not stay, but rather jump back to the FCE projects folder.
7) However, when I drag the thumbnail of the first frame of my video onto the iDVD page it remains. However, this is a FCE file, not a QT file of my movie, and does not support converting my iDVD file into an image for later burning.

How can i import mpg files in i movie

how can i import mpg files in i movie?

iMovie cannot edit mpg files, unles they come directly from a supported camera.
I would suggest that you use a free third party app to convert it.
Get MPEG Streamclip from Squared 5, which is free.
Drag you mpg clip into MPEG Streamclip.
Then, FILE/EXPORT USING QUICKTIME
Choose Apple Intermediate Codec, and save it where you can find it. You should be able to import this file into iMovie, using the FILE/IMPORT/MOVIE command.
Note: If your file is an MPEG2 clip, you may need to purchase the Apple QuickTime MPEG2 Playback Component from Apple. MPEG Streamclip will tell you if you need this. Don't buy it unless you have to. It costs about $20. You just have to install the component. MPEG Streamclip will use it in the background.

AVI to MOV converter

Any1 knows a good avi to mov converter that is free of charge??
THX

Does MPEG Streamclip do what you want? Note that AVI is a container, not a file format; the audio and video parts of it may be encoded with any codec.
(27458)

I had all my old home video's and super 8 movies converted to DVD's. Since I will move back to Europe I asked the company to convert them to PAl system.

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Importing a 16:9 FCE movie converts to 4:3--help

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