Panasonic nv-gs180 and 16:9

Question

I shot footage with my new Panasonic NV-GS180 in 16:9 wide mode. iMOvie sees my camera fine but imports the footage in 4:3 mode and pillarboxes it. How do I get iMovie to give me the correct aspect ratio?
Thanks!

Answer 1

If you export the footage from the JVC in Standard-Def mode (..I'm not familiar with the latest JVCs, so I don't know if there's a facility to do that, but I assume that the camera can export HD as SD, like Sony hi-def cameras can..) then you could mix'n'match that JVC footage with the 16:9 Panny footage.
Unfortunately, my similar project is on a different machine, so I can't.. oh: wait a minute: here's a screen-grab of some Sony hi-def footage, 'downconverted' in the camera and imported into iMovie as standard-def, with another SD clip added after it (..in this case a 4:3 clip..)
(..click on the pic above to see a larger, clearer version..)
But you won't be able to mix'n'match true HD with normal SD in the same project: you'd have to bring the HD into iMovie as 'downconverted' (..exported from the camera..) into standard-def first.
[..NOTE that the first DV clip in that picture, above, is a "disposable" (not really wanted) clip, which was purposely put into the new project first to "convince" iMovie that the program's supposed to be playing, and importing, normal DV-Widescreen, and to tell iMovie to IGNORE the HDV 1080i identity which the connected Sony camera announced itself to be even when the Sony was playing 'downconverted' standard-def down the FireWire cable. I don't know, though, how to set up a JVC to export hi-def which it's 'downconverting' to standard-def as it exports, sorry..]
(..Sorry this may seem a bit garbled: I've got knee-ache and back-ache today!..)