Aspect ratio query

[almyers]

Hi there,

I'm a rather inexperience editor cutting a short that was shot on digibetcam in 16:9. I digitised the footage onto an external hard drive on Final cut 4 but I'm cutting it at home on Final cut 3.

It's for Tropfest so if the film was shot in 16:9, it has to be in 4:3 letterbox format. I had conflicting advice on how to go about digitising and cutting this to get that result.
Now some of the footage looks elongated in 4:3 but other parts look squashed in 16:9 and vice versa.
On a widescreen TV the footage looks 16:9 but it looks 4:3 on a regular screen.

I am now really confused and facing the prospect of redigitising.
Can anybody help!

[Artie Fufkin]

As long as you've captured everything in 16:9, all you need to do is change the aspect ratio to -33.33 in the distort section of the motions tab in final cut (will be on the viewer window next to the sound and vision tab) That'll then letter box the 16:9 footage inside the 4:3 project. Hopefully that'll work for you

[Daz]

Just watch out for any shots that may not be 16:9 anamorphic in the first place, eg DV material, archive shots

[almyers]

Thanks. I think it's sorted now.
Just wondering, when I was digitising there were a lot of options for aspect ratio ( not something I've had to worry about before). What effect does this setting have on your footage? If I capture 4:3 footage on a 16:9 setting, will it be distorted and vice versa? There didn't seem to be an obvious choice for 16:9 digi betacam, the 16:9 options seemed more for HD.

[Jude]

It actually doens't matter if you capture 16:9 or 4:3. You can just tell FCP what it is later.

Just be sure that your sequence settings match your clip settings before you put stuff in the timeline, otherwise there will be render issues.

In one of the columns of your browser there is an 'anamorphic' column - to work in 16:9 put a tick in here and in all the clips that are anamorpic 16:9.

[rachelw]

the big tick goes for timelines too

you mentioned seeing things differently on monitor outputs, keep in mind that depending on the monitor setup and whether it is a domestic or broadcast monitor it could be settings that have nothing to do with your edit - I know a lot of folks with less eqipment will burn a dvd and then see what it looks like on a standard telly, or hook up to a standard telly, and this adds a variety of settings on varied bits of gear along the signal path which could be the problem (as well as authoring). If you don' have a broadcast monitor with a choice of aspect ratios, make sure your timeline is the correct ratio and just have a look at all your footage and settings and if something is the wrong ratio you can change it.

Also, regarding digitizing in the correct aspect ratio, you can go into your settings list, duplicate a setting preset (such as dv or what have you) and give it the aspect ratio you desire, and a name that has meaning for you, and then use this as your digitizing setting. ditto goes for timeline settings. all those settings can be finessed. But copying before editing means you don't mess up the presets that come with fcp.

r