Anamorphic to Quicktime problems

I have been following the threads on working with anamorphic video shot with a dv cam and have tried to use the suggestions in those threads. However, when I export my file to a Quicktime file, the result looks too anamorphic (more than 16:9). It looks good in FCP but not in QT. I have tried a number of combinations based on the threads but get the same results... I created another sequence w/o 16:9 checked, dragged the 16:9 into the 3:2 and output to QT. Result is too anamorphic. Output the 16:9 as is to QT then reimported QT file into a 3:2 sequence, distorted the clip to -33.3. Output again to QT. Result the same... too anamorphic. Any solutions or suggestions? One would think when you shoot 16:9 (I'm using a GL2), edit in FCPHD and output to QT, it should look as it does in FCP.

Thanks for your help.

What does it look like on tape and on DVD? It's highly unlikely that a QuickTime movie file would "look okay in FCP" but not in QuickTime Player, unless one of these applications has an out-of-whack setting.

I haven't sent it out to tape or to a DVD. Just by judging from the exported QT file, it is more stretched horizontally than FCP shows. I have been able to use QT pro and resize the 720x480 file to 720x520 and "make" it look right proportionatly. Any suggestions on why it stretched horizontally in QT. I just updated to FCP HD and started this project with the default settings in FCP. Same with QTP... no settings out of whack that I know of on either.

Also, how do I crop out the black at top & bottom? I want to use these series of videos on a website and don't want the black.

Thanks for your help!

Darrin,
I think you don't understand how anamorphic works. It's supposed to be stretched upward like that. DVD players, certain video monitors capable of displaying anamorphic and the FCP Canvas squeeze the image on the fly, so you really don't want to distort it again, unless your destination is a standard TV monitor that cannot scale the image to letterbox on the fly.

You mention that your destination is for the web. In this case, you do need to squeeze it when exporting the sequence to QT or Cleaner.

The article I wrote for kenstone.net is getting a bit old, but if you scroll to the bottom, you'll find some instructions for getting widescreen video into QT for the web.

[www.kenstone.net]

Basically, what you are going to need to do on exporting in QT is enter values for the width and height so the desired height is 9/16 of the desired width (to determine this value, multiply the width by 0.5625),

Example frame sizes using this ratio:

If you are exporting from the native DV-NTSC full-frame size of 720 x 480, set the output frame size to be 720 x 405.

A smaller 16:9 frame size would be 400 x 225, etc. You get the point.

By using the formula above, you can come up with your own values for smaller web widescreen aspect ratios.

The article explains how to export anamorpically squeezed footage using both QT and Cleaner. Hope this helps you understand what is really going on with anamorphic footage. Getting your head wrapped around it comes in handy for a lot of different widescreen situations and outputs.

Good Luck,
Kevin Monahan