Working with Widescreen

Question

I'm making my first foray into working in widescreen and I'm a little lost. I've got a client who is giving me downresed HD footage (they gave up on HD because of the price) and they want 16:9 DVD Menus. I've been playing around and set up a simple menu in photoshop using the D1/DV NTSC Widescreen 1.2 setting for pixel aspect ratio. I open up DVDSP and change the settings in preferences to 16:9 and the menu is still in 4:3. I'm guessing I'm doing something simple wrong here. I also can't seem to figure out how to get FCP to operate in widescreen. Somewhere, I'm just missing something. Thanks in advance for your help. I'll leave Helpfuls and Solved!

Answer 1

When you say you've adjusted your preferences to be 16:9, but you're menu is still 4:3 are you talking about the menu that existed in the project that DVDSP had open?
Because, if you are, that DVDSP preference change does not affect currently existing menus - you'd need to change that menu manually. Of course, if your issue persists whenever you add a new menu - those new menus should be 16:9 - let us know.
As for FCP to operate in widescreen, what footage have you received for your client? Unless its 8-bit or 10-bit stuff, you should be able to make due with the DV-NTSC Anamorphic Easy Setup. Or, if you need step-by-step help, in FCP:
Press Control-Q to bring up the Easy Setup dialog
Confirm that the box for Show All, in the upper right corner, is checked
From the main drop-down, select DV-NTSC Anamorphic, then click Setup to exit the dialog
Please remember that this setting will not cascade thru to any existing sequences in your FCP project; those will need to be adjusted on a case-by-case basis. (Or, if you can, simply delete them)
Or are your issues beyond all that?