Wrong aspect ratio when export to mov file

Hi,
Hoping that you can help me. I've being filming some Hi-def widescreen 16:9 footage which i've want to export to a mov file. However, whatever option i chose, the resutant export gets converted to 4:3.
I'm not sure what i'm doing wrong. Here are the details.
Original File
PAL HDV - 1080i 25fps
Export
Codec H.264
Output 1440x1080 25fps Upper 100%
Source 1440x1080 25fps Upper
Aspect: D1/DV PAL widescreen 16:9
Hope you can help. Let me knwo if you need any more information.
Cheers
Rob

Thanks for your input. I think the main issue is that i originally captured the video using another peice of software. These files were 1440x1080 so i was getting 'letter boxing' on the left and right. After doing a lot of reading, i now understand the importance of selecting the correct project setting
Leading on from this, I'm about to do some more filming and have hired a HDV camcorder (Sony HVR 27p - PAL). It's 1080i and can film in interlaced (25 or 50fps) or progressive. (25fps)
My questions are:
The required output playback file (mov file format) needs to be progressive. Should i film in progressive as well, or stick with interlaced and change the output settings when creating the output file?
If i stick with interlaced, do i film in 50 or 25 as the output file needs to be 25fps?
Although the camera captures 16:9, the pixels are 1440x1080 (which by all accounts in usual with HDV cameras.) Do i select a project setting whose setup is 1440x1080 or do i use 1720x1080?
Thanks a lot for your help so far.
Rob

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Unwanted moderate distortion of aspect ratio when exporting video

This seems to be a new problem for me, and I don't THINK I've changed any of my parameters. But the result is now wrong... Help!
I use my VCR to record from US broadcasts (good old fashioned plain old TV, NTSC, I presume). Then I transfer snippets onto my DV camcorder (good ol' plain DV, nothing with 16:9 or anything like that). Then I import my DV footage into iMovie HD 6.0.2. It imports fine and looks like a normal aspect ratio.
But when I export using the File > Export... setting, I get a Quicktime video which appears vertically squished. The faces are too wide, bodies are too fat.
Looking at the various aspect ratios, I see that the preview window in iMovie HD is about 720 by 525 -- there are no black bars or letterboxing, and faces and bodies look normal. But the output video is 720 by 480, which is (according to a quick Google search) a normal NTSC output. No cropping has taken place, and no letterboxing, either. So that's why it's squished. But...
So why is iMovie showing me something from right off my TV screen which is the wrong aspect ratio but seems to have the correct proportions? That would seem to imply that my good ol' TV and VCR are not actually operating in NTSC proportions... which would be extremely weird because the footage I happen to have recorded is from an old game show from the 1960s. Do I have some setting wrong somewhere?? Is there something fundamental I don't understand? Help! Like I said, this is a new problem with me and I don't recall having changed any import settings.

Thanks for your help! I had no idea that so many video processes use rectangular pixels. But I'm still confused. What I see on screen in iMovie (and most QuickTime stuff) looks fine, but what I got out of this last set of conversions looks wrong.
Obviously you used the Full Quality DV option which uses rectangular pixels, right?
Uh... I have no idea. I've spent a couple of minutes looking through the menus in iMovie and I don't see anything labeled "Full Quality DV". I'm not specifically trying to export in DV format; I'm trying to compress my NTSC format so that it plays back in nearly full size on my iBook laptop, which cannot keep up with Sorensen video or the H.264 (or two-sixty-whatever) codecs. I found that Cinepak CAN be played back at this size on my iBook. But Cinepak is a compression standard, not a video frame size standard, right?
What you are seeing is normal... 720x480 NTSC rectangular pixel DV should be scaled to 656x480 square pixels.
No, it's not normal. It doesn't look normal to the eye. It's not what normally happened to me in the past. It drives me nuts. By those three definitions, it's not normal.
I am not trying to export in a format that fits some video standard or TV set. I'm trying to export a QuickTime movie which will display properly when played back by QuickTime. So I'm extremely frustrated when iMovie (or something) takes a video clip from an NTSC source and for some odd reason squishes it.
When you say that "720x480 NTSC rectangular pixel DV should be scaled to 656x480 square pixels", I assume you mean that it should be scaled to that number of square pixels in order to display on a computer monitor with square pixels (i.e., basically all computer monitors) in a way which makes faces and bodies appear of normal proportions, right? Are you implying that the problem is that rectangular pixels are NOT being converted/resampled to square pixels, but that the conversion is being done on a (no-resampling) pixel-by-pixel basis? I'm just not sure I understnand the point you are making here.
Since I had different results in the past, there must be SOMETHING different about my current setup. After reading the link you suggested, I see that there are a HUGE number of possible complications out there. The main idea, however, is that I want to produce a QuickTime movie which looks the same as the preview shown in iMovie: Same shape of faces, same shape of bodies, just as it was when I originally viewed the footage on my television.
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Yes, this seems to be a problem with Mac OS X 10.5 (or maybe some QT version) and 16:9 (PAL and NTSC) SD projects. 4:3 projects are OK.
But I prefer to use Photo To Movie to compose iMovie slideshows anyway because its quality is and has been better.
http://www.sjoki.uta.fi/~shmhav/iMovieHD_6_bugs.html#jaggystills

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I'm new to iMovie. I'm really enjoying playing around with it and think it's a really nice tool and very intuitive. But there's one thing that is bothering me. I'm working with 16:9 aspect ratio (Widescreeen) as the project type which corresponds to how the movies were recorded (a Canon MVX4i or Optura 600 in the USA I think). Everything works fine until I try to export in full quality format (using Export). The .dv file only plays back in 4:3 aspect ratio. I tried using the Expert settings, with 16:9 set and both PAL and NTSC but QuickTime and Preview still only see the movie in 4:3 aspect. If I understand correctly, the aspect ratio is just a flag that is set somewhere.
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Hi David,
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However, when you view the footage in iMovie there's a flag in the file that tells iMovie that the footage is wide and therefore to stretch it accordingly.
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- Click the Share button
- In the save dialog box that pops up Select "Movie to QuickTime Movie" in the Export section
- Click Option...
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- Set the Rate to 48.000kHz
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- Uncheck all the other options (Little Endian, Floating Point and Unsigned)
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- Uncheck the Prepare for Internet Streaming box
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If you'd like to know a little more about the way aspect ratios works here's some links for you:
Wikipedia
World easiest explanation of anamorphic 16:9
Hope this makes a little more sense now and sorry if I've covered stuff you already know. Hopefully this information will be of use to you but post back if you need more help.
Cheers.
David.
PowerMac G4 Dual 1.25Ghz / 1GB RAM Mac OS X (10.4.5) PowerBook 12" 1Ghz / 768MB RAM

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Hello All;
I am trying to export a FCP project in its native resolution (1440 X 1080) to Quicktime but everytime I try, the aspect ratio is messed up and people look taller and thinner than they should.
The project is a resolution of 1440 X 1080 as determined by examining the sequence settings in FCP.
I configure quicktime (see below) to a resolution of 1440 X 1080.
So why isn't my Quicktime video the correct resolution when I play it with the IMac's Quicktime player ? I shrink the player to 1/2 size to fit it all on the screen.
My exact settings are below ...
Export - Using Quicktime Conversion
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But I prefer to use Photo To Movie to compose iMovie slideshows anyway because its quality is and has been better.
http://www.sjoki.uta.fi/~shmhav/iMovieHD_6_bugs.html#jaggystills

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Wrong aspect ratio when export to mov file

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