Mix Aspect Ratios?

Is it possible to mix aspect ratios in an iDVD project? I'd like to have a 16x9 menu, a 16x9 movie, and a 4x3 slideshow, since all my pictures are 4x3 and I'd like to avoid windowboxing.

Normally the answer is no. You cannot do this in iDVD. But I'm wondering if it might be possible to add the 4:3 as a QT Movie to the DVD Rom contents of the iDVD that was created in 16:9 thereby allowing you to do this when playing back on a computer.
Just an idea.....
Click Here

Similar Messages

Mixing Aspect Ratios

I have been using IMovie for a couple of years and decided to make the jump to FCE. I am currently in the process of putting together a training video and am having difficulty mixing some of the 4:3 ratios with the new 16:9 clips. I have a basic understanding of Anamorphic settings(at least I think I do) and have gone out and bought Tom's FCE 4 editing workshop book. While it has helped out a lot with understanding the concepts of FCE 4, I still can't figure out a solution.
Forgive me because I am not very knowledgeable in a lot of the movie production terminology or concepts but I am trying to learn. This is what I am doing. I have shot a lot of new footage on my cannon using 16:9 aspect ratio. This is HD and looks great. I made a training video in the past, burned it to DVD, and am now trying to use some of that footage from the old DVD that was made in 4:3 ratio. I have ripped it down as a .mov and stored it on my external hd.
If I wanted to make the video using Imovie, the process is very simple. I choose 16:9 under project properties and the 4:3 footage is automatically altered in such a way that it looks pretty good and mixes well with the 16:9 hd footage.
I have tried doing the same with FCE 4 using easy setup and while there are so many settings to choose from, I was wondering if there is setting that does what Imovie does so easily? I know I can change the aspect ratio under the motion-distort-aspect ratio but it doesn't look nearly as good as it does on the imovie program. I also know I can directly change the size of the clip in the canvas but even that doesn't look as good as Imovie's conversion.
I really want to use FCE because I can see it as offering so many more options but this is something pretty important that I need to be able to do. So basic recap...I want to easily be able to convert 4:3 aspect ratio footage to mix in with 16:9 and export it all to a 16:9 dvd.
Any help would be appreciated

Thanks Tom,
Unfortunately it seems like IMovie produces the best results with minimal effort for what I need right now. Too bad since I spent the money for FCE. Great book you put out though. While I have you, I was reading what you were saying about using multiple monitors. I am using a year old 24" imac that I maxed out the processor and memory abilities when I bought it. It runs FCE pretty well. I have another monitor(Sony) that I would like to set up so I could have it designated for everything rendered. Do you know how or even if this is something I would be able to do? Or is multiple monitors something that can only be done on a Mac Pro?

Solving iDVD problems with mixed aspect ratio input.

I have been trying to create a DVD with a compilation of slideshows. The slideshows are of mixed vintage and were created with various software. The older shows are 640 x 480 and 720 x 480 and the latest were created for my Apple TV with 1240 x 720.
During the creation of the DVD, the test runs looked fine, but when the DVD was played the 4:3 AR shows were stretched to full screen. I tried making the DVD in 4:3 ratio and in widescreen. The TV is widescreen.
I searched the forums and even e-mailed David Pogue (no reply) after reading his iDVD book. My solutions came from this forum and I would like to thank the contributors. I cannot name them because I cannot reproduce the same query and the clues I found, were not always a direct response to the topic.
The results I hoped for, were to have the 4: 3 ratio slideshows play in a widescreen window with black bars on the side. The two solutions I found from the forum were as follows:
1. Using iDVD, Add the 4:3 aspect ratio slideshow into iDVD as a slideshow and not as a movie. This uses the slideshow formatting to add the black bars. It appears it is OK to add video instead of slides. The 16:9 slideshows were added as normal movies and the DVD worked as expected.
2. The second solutions (from this forum again) was to create a single slideshow containing all the mixed format shows, use Garageband to add show markers, and output to iDVD. I used Fotomagico, which allows movies to be included with photos. The results were fine and I had two DVDs that played as I expected.
I want to thank those people who cantribute their time and expertise in these forums. I was one of many who benefitted from their posts.
Message was edited by: pfcurtis

I just noticed that I listed this topic under iDVD'08. I should have listed it under the latest iLife'09. Can the Moderators move it please?

Mixed aspect ratio project -- best setting in iMovie

I am creating a new family project in iMovie (8.0.6) -- a "through the years" compilation of video clips. The older clips were shot in 4:3 on miniDV tape; the more recent material was shot in 16:9 HD flash memory.
What aspect ratio should I choose when creating my new project for the best results? I will probably output to DVD and view on HDTV. Thanks for any advice, Jeff.

I would use 16:9 for your project.
Then, for your 4:3 clips, open the inspector to the Rotate, Crop, Ken Burns tab and select "Fit".
This will give you letterboxing on the 4:3.

XML file from '08 has a different aspect ratio in FCP 6?

I have the new canon vixia hg 21 which is avchd and FCP 6 isn't recognizing it. Using Imovie to recognize the files works fine, the problem is that when you export from imovie '08 into FCP via xml, it imports fine, but I get a display issue with black bars surrounding the footage, only in the canvas. It appears fine in the viewer and in it's own sequence in the timeline. But when you mix the different camera footage together, the other being the Canon XH A1, it appears as a different aspect ratio??? What the? and for the life of me, I've re imported using 16:9, no difference...I have no idea what's going on.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!

You should really take this to the Final Cut Pro forum as the codecs and the interface is different for Final Cut Express.

How to fix an error in sequnece setting (aspect ratio)?

Hi,
I have been working for a while on a project in CS4. I have created a sequence in it with an aspect ratio (AR) of 4:3 - worked for hours on it - but I should had the sequence created instead in 16:9. I realised it a bit too late...
So how do I fix it?
Apparently amending the sequence setting for AR cannot be done - please let me know if there is any way of doing this.
Someone suggested editing the PRPROJ file of the project - but when I opened it I was unable to detect under the sequence name (I found a few entries with it) where I can easily change the sequence to 16:9.
So then I found people suggesting I copy/paste all the assets from the sequence into a new one that is correctly configured with 16:9. When I did this - CTRL+A and Copy, then paste into a new sequence in the same project - it copied all the clips and I think also all the transitions. But the key element that it did not copy over were all the changes I have done to the sound - I have been editing via the sound mixer (in Write mode) the sound, and then also made changes to the master track volume levels. These were not copied over.
I really don't want to have to do the mixing all over again. If someone can explain how I can fix the problem in any way I would be most thankful.
While I am here asking - another 2 small questions that have been bugging me:
How I can copy and paste volume keyframes from either the master track or a clip and apply it on another clip/section of the clip that would be very helpful. This would for example be useful if I am able to find a certain volume level that I would like to apply to the desired section without the need to sit and "record" (using the Write function) those settings on the desired area. If there is any means to apply the properties on audio track this way - that would be really useful and time saving.
A best practice hint: when you try and create a sound level for a project - what PC volume level setting do you set in your PC that you use as a benchmark by which we then work out the sound level that would be created in the project? Obviously if I push my PC volume al the way up I would probably mix my sound in the project too low. And if I set the PC volume too low - than I would probably be setting the overall sound level too high and get distortion. As the movies I created would be burnt onto a DVD - what is the volume level on the PC (if there is any means of establishing a standard volume) that I need to match first before I go and figure out what level of sound the finished DVD would have? Of course I can work on say a 50% and then apply gains and volume increases based on that 50% of the max sound my PC plays out. But that sounds pretty much like a random setting and not optimised for other devices.
My system:
Windows 7, 32-bit
CS4, v. 4.2.1
This looks like a fairly basic question but I am unable to find a good answer to it...
Many thanks to the person who shows me how this can be done without me going crazy over the need to start all over again...
Eroka00

Hi Ann,
Your tip saved me a lot of time indeed....!
So I created a new sequence, made sure it was 16:9, copy pasted all of the assets, but then had to do the following:
1. Copy/Paste Attributes for all the video clips (these do not transfer);
2. As you suggested used the whole of the old sequence as a nested sequence in the new one, eliminating the video altogether.
I still had a nagging issue that the project would not render or export well - but that turned out to be an issue with rendeiring large files (the video was an uncut clip of almost 10GB, andother of 6GB). Splicing these into 10 minute segments and rendering them separately did the trick.
It's ben amlong Xmas weekend and endless hours spendt on this project. Yaikes!
Thanks for the workaround idea!

FCP scaling/aspect ratio motion algorithms make good video soft?

I have tried everything, but converting 16:9 footage into a 4:3 timeline in Final Cut Pro makes the letter-boxed video soft. I have, of course, double checked against NTSC external broadcast monitor. Original 16:9 clips look great, when converted to letter box 4:3 timeline they go soft. ( I believe it is FCP ineptness in handling Pixel Aspect Ratio conversion from 1.2 to 0.9, but I would love to be wrong at this point) I know FCP has poor scaling algorithms to begin with, but this is a very obnoxious issue when capturing clips widescreen from the deck, but having your final output needing to be edited and taped off in letter-boxed format for SD broadcast.
I really want to avoid losing any quality when going from 16:9 to 4:3 letter-box, so is there a plugin that can be used to handle the rescaling that does a better job than just FCP by itself? These are pretty complicated edits, (television show) so avoiding having to hop over to After Effects for a second huge render would be preferable. I have exhausted Google looking into this, lol, anyone have any ideas?
Thanks All,
Dustin Hoye
Editor
Sour Squirrel Studios, llc.

Patrick,
Thanks for the quick response. My motion filtering quality is set to "Best". After looking over the link you provided ( I will examine more thoroughly, but saw your response and wanted to re-post to answer your question.) I also tried switching to "Fastest (linear)" just to see if it would eliminate the softness/possible double lines, but of course, no luck. (Also, just to clarify, this is working all in SD.)
I would consider using Compressor or (After Effects for that matter), but I am editing using the letter box conversion because we occasionally are mixing in past regular 4:3 footage with the letter boxed 16:9. (the reg 4:3 being a minority of the clips) It is easier just to matte those 4:3 clips to match the converted 16:9 since there are fewer of them. If I fed the timeline to compressor then those clips (the reg. 4:3) would get interpreted incorrectly. I suppose I could just leave them out and re-insert them later, but depending on the number of them and how they are used that could be quite a work-around. It would be great if I could just get FCP to interpret the conversion internally (i.e. plugin) w/out causing quality loss. Sigh.
Everything else is set to 100%; editing 10- bit uncompressed, 10-bit material in High Precision YUV. I have tried multiple combinations of capture, codecs and vid processing options, but all seem to have the same result.
Thanks Again,
Dustin

Aspect ratio help for a newbie?

Hi Everyone,
I've got a Sony DCR SR-32 camera (please don't laugh ) and shooting in its HQ mode, (9Mb/s) and 16:9 aspect ratio.
I can import the footage into iMovie and make a movie with no problems. But I've just bought FCE and am struggling to get the footage imported at the correct 16:9 aspect ratio. After trawling the discussions I've tried the log and transfer method, and all the other relevant discussion on importing AVCHD files directly into FCE but no success (I get file opening error ?). So I'm bringing the footage into iMovie, exporting it from iMovie as an FCE XML file and opening that using PAL anamorphic or NTSC anamorphic Easy setups.
Even so, I've got what looks like 16:9 video squeezed into a 4:3 aspect ratio with black boarders on either side padding it out back to the 16:9 size.
I'd welcome any advice other than "get a new camera "

Hi Tom, I seem to have a similar problem, not sure if you've seen this, but I have the new canon vixia hg 21 which is avchd and FCP 6 isn't recognizing it either. Using Imovie to recognize the files works fine, the problem is that when you export from imovie '08 into FCP via xml, it imports fine, but I also get the same display issue with the black bars surrounding the footage, only in the canvas. It appears fine in the viewer and in it's own sequence in the timeline. But when you mix the different camera footage together, the other being the Canon XH A1, it appears as a different aspect ratio??? What the?
ANy help would be greatly appreciated!

Pixel Aspect Ratio Issues-FCP HELPP!!!

Okay folks, so currently I am putting together my reel in FCP, however I am encountering a few issues. So my source formats are different in pixel aspect ratio, some was shot on the 7D, some on the Alexa, and some on super 16mm, and a few after effects animations. However all of it is HD, and in ProresHQ 422. My problem here is when I import all of my media into FCP if the timeline is set to square pixels, the HD(1440x1080) footage looks squished, and if I set the timeline to HD(1440x1080) the square pixel footage looks blocky, pixelated and super square.
That said, some of the footage from the 7D is labelled as square and some is labelled as HD(1440x1080), and all the after effects stuff is square.
Right now i am dealing with it and just leaving my timeline as green-preview render, so everything looks mostly normal. However whichever format is not that of the timeline, the footage is degraded a tiny bit, so that when I pause the footage it looks great, but in preview it is slightly blurry.
My question is, is there a way to format everything as either square or HD(1440x1080), so it looks normal, or is there a way to use mixed media formats and not have the preview blur. I'm going crazy over here, as I just graduated and am in dire need of a reel so I can begin to apply for jobs, etc....Or is there a way to formate my prores setting to transform everything to square pixels?
Thanks guys!

You can use compressor to convert everything to square pixels, however there's no need to worry about how it looks in fcp when it's playing but not fully rendered. Try exporting a short section (mark an in and out around the section - and going file: export: quicktime Not quicktime conversion) with current settings. If you render the material, it should look fine when you play it within fcp. Unfortunately, the render settings in the sequence menu are not particularly intuitive, but do a little playing around with them if you've got the time.
I prefer to convert all my sources to my intended pixel dimensions, frame rate and codec before I edit in fcp, but it may not be necessary in your case.

XML imported from iM '08 has a different aspect ratio in FCP 6?

I have the new canon vixia hg 21 which is avchd and FCP 6 isn't recognizing it. Using Imovie to recognize the files works fine, the problem is that when you export from imovie '08 into FCP via xml, it imports fine, but I get a display issue with black bars surrounding the footage, only in the canvas. It appears fine in the viewer and in it's own sequence in the timeline. But when you mix the different camera footage together, the other being the Canon XH A1, it appears as a different aspect ratio??? What the? and for the life of me, I've re imported using 16:9, no difference...I have no idea what's going on.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Found the answer, and pretty simple too....yeesh. just click on your clip and go to setting>conform to sequence.

Pixel Aspect Ratio bug in Media Encoder export

Having a weird bug in media encoder exports that I can't seem to figure out. I have a 1080p sequence with a mix of 1080p footage and PAL DV assets. The PAL assets have a pixel aspect ratio of 1.0940. When I format them in my Premiere sequence, I am able to scale them correctly and they look fine. When I export them directly from premiere to broadcast standards it's also fine.
However, when I try to export these sequences in Media Encoder via File->Export->Media-> Queue using the same exact settings (I'm using a preset), Media Encoder formats the PAL assets as if they have square pixels. Thus, half of the footage in my sequences gets horizontally "squished." Note that this does not happen for footage that natively has square pixels, such as my 1080p camera footage.
Has anyone encountered this bug? It seems strange to me that Media Encoder would treat items in a sequence differently that Premiere during export, I was under the impression they were using the same rendering engine... It's really a problem as I'm going to have to crank out multiple versions of this 48-minute film and not being able to queue those exports is going to be a huge headache.
Using latest version of CC 2014.1 (8.1.0).

Screenshot of Premiere Export (fills screen):
Screenshot of Media Encoder export: (notice the pillar-boxing)

Aspect ratio problem with consumer camera and Premiere Elements 11

Hello everyone - I'm Steve. I'm new here. I do still photography on a pro level, digital and analog, but I am an absolute dummy with video...but then, I don't want to do much, just rudimentarily cut a few family videos, upload them, etc.
However, I can't get Premiere Elements 11 to output my self-shot clips in a correct aspect ratio.
My camera is a consumer-model Canon Legria FS200. I shoot video in a resolution the camera calls XP. The camera says they are 16:9, the camera monitor shows them as 16:9, and when I use the software (called Pixela Image Mixer) that came with the camera to import the clips to disk, I get mpg files that Windows (7) Explorer says are 720x576 pixel, and that VLC player correctly displays as wide-screen 16:9 without me having to tweak its display settings.
However, the moment I import them into Premiere Elements, they appear horizontally squeezed, and I can't seem to output them any other way, with or even without editing them in Premiere.
I tried to use the recipe given here: https://forums.adobe.com/message/5987538#5987538 , (replacing only NTSC with PAL because I'm in Germany), namely, setting the project preset set manually for PAL/Hard Disk etc/ Widescreen 48kHz and check force selected program settings. But no matter, Premiere displays the video in horizontally compressed form, with large black bars to the right and to the left.
On the export side, setting the output to PAL DVD Widescreen and setting the Pixel Aspect Ratio in the output settings to Widescreen does not help, either. Neither can I force VLC player manually to display the correct aspect ratio. BTW, audio is perfect all along.
This is about as far as I can see myself getting without help. Has anyone any idea?
Thanks a lot in advance,
Steve, from Germany

Steve
I see that you are now in the Adobe Premiere Elements Forum with your problem already solved.
I did not see any Why for what you encountered, so I thought I would give you my take on this.
Your Canon FS200 gives video with MPEG2 video compression with a .mod file extension. That .mod file extension can be found in use with some Canon as well as JVC cameras. The .mod file history with Premiere Elements (any version) is problematic. In some instances, the user needs to rename the file extension from .mod to .mpg before it can be imported, but not always. But, the .mod widescreen comes packaged with the aspect ratio dilemma, presenting as 4:3 rather than 16:9. The classical argument is whether Premiere Elements does not recognize a .mod file's 16:9 flag or whether the 16:9 flag got lost.
There used to be a utility contributed by an user to handle the file extension and/or aspect ratio issues. Now, the general fix is to import the file into Premiere Elements (in your case 11) with Add Media/Files and Folder/Project Assets. And in Project Assets, you right click the file, select Interpret Footage, and go to the Pixel Aspect Ratio section of the Interpret Footage dialog where you
(a) dot the Conform To:
and
(a) set the Contorm To: field to (in your case) D1/DV PAL Widescreen 16:9 (1.4587)
Once you are in the program and have the file on the Timeline, if any black edges, you can click the monitor to bring up the image's bounding box. Then drag on a bounding box handle to scale the image just to the point where the black edges are gone.
If you ever need the Adobe Premiere Elements Forum, maybe bookmark this link
Premiere Elements
You should expect to have this issue with any .mod widescreen file that you obtain from your Canon FS200 camera.
ATR
Add On...If you are depending on the program to set the correct project preset, you may want to check into what it is setting based on the properties the first file you drag to the Timeline. A manual setting of the project preset may be in order. Please see
ATR Premiere Elements Troubleshooting: PE11: Accuracy of Automatic Project Preset (New Project Dialog) Setting

Monitor window aspect ratio

How do you set the aspect ratio of the monitor window? Sometimes a 16:9 still image will full the monitor window, and sometimes it will be letterboxed inside a 4:3 monitor window. How do you control this?

For just the Program Monitor, setting that to Fit, will be correct - however, your Project Preset MUST match you Source Footage. Are you mixing Source Footage, or mis-matching the Project's Settings to your Source Footage?
Good luck,
Hunt

Match resolutions/aspect ratio of two different cameras

I shot a short video with an iPad 3 and a Sony DCR-DVD-403 NTSC.
The video from the iPad is fuller and wider than the footage I shot with the Sony Cam.
1. I just need them to be the same size as I edit. So that I can produce this project with all video the same size.
2. I would also like to know if I can capture the footage from the miniDVD straight into Premiere Pro without having to use a third party converter to rip and convert. Is this possible, if so, then I am hoping I get the option to match the video aspect ratio from the discs with the iPad footage.
I can't find the answer to these questions anywhere.
Many thanks,
TekyJohn

You have three issues to deal with -
1) Sony footage is Standard Definition, iPad is HD
2) Sony is 4:3, iPad is 16:9 widescreen
3) iPad clips are 30.0 frames per second, while the standard for video is 29.97 frames actually, like the Sony clips are.
If both were widescreen, this would be so much simpler....
Do you need to deliver in HD, or will SD be ok? Because if you blow up the SD to HD, it will look very soft next to the HD video. Better to bring the HD down to SD specs. If they were both 16:9, you'd be all set!
However, you need to decide if you want to crop the iPad footage to 4:3, or make the 4:3 clips into 16:9, either way you lose part of the image. Or you could mix them as is, but you will have either letterboxing or pillarboxing on just ONE of the clips and that will not look good when switching between the two cameras.
So...if you want to deliver as 16:9 SD, you could do this - create a new DV Widescreen sequence and add your clips. To get rid of the black side bars (pillarboxing) on the SD clips, use the Adobe Motion control in Effects panel to Scale the clip up until it fills the screen. You then may also need to adjust the clip up or down within the frame so as to not cut off heads, keep subject framed, using Position settings for X and Y. That is the downside to making 4:3 into 16:9, you lose some of the image. For the iPad clip, right-click and select "Scale to Frame Size" and it will fill the widescreen just fine.
If you want to deliver 4:3 SD, then choose an NTSC DV preset, which will be 4:3 and suitable to the Sony clips. Then bring in the iPad clips and Scale down to fit using Motion effect, keeping in mind the SIDES of the video will be clipped off. Again, you can use the Position settings in Motion to move the frame left or right to keep the subject framed.
As for frame rate issue, I believe that Adobe will handle that for you when putting the 30fps clip into the 29.97 sequence, should be ok but may result in a little weirdness in smoothness of motion, not sure. I don't know if you'll run into audio sync issues between the two though??
Good luck
Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

Is there any way for Keynote to create slides in a 16:9 (HD) aspect ratio?

I have a mixed media presentation going through an LCD projector. the video content is 16:9. Can Keynote create a 16:9 aspect ratio presentation or am I out of luck (until that feature is added)?

Hi Tulse,
I have just switched to Mac and I'm going through the learning curve. I am trying to make a poster in Keynote and need help properly sizing it. I went to the document inspector and tried to set a custom file size. The problem is that when I calculated the number of pixels at 300 dpi for a 36x24 or 48x36 inch poster, Keynote would not accept that high of a number. I know there is probably a simple solution, because I know that Keynote is able to do something as simple as this!
Please help!
Morgan

Mix Aspect Ratios?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for