16 x 9 playback problems

After transferring my HDV footage into my DVCAM deck, I captured it into FC. I used the downconversion feature of the HDV camera and output a letterboxed DV signal from the camera to the deck.

when I captured the DV tape I used the DV NTSC easy setup format. I noticed that my viewer and canvas windows were shaped in a 16 x 9 view. I ignored it.

I also ignored that I seemed to have lost my full screen or letterboxed external NTSC monitor display capability. The picture on the external monitor only appeared when playing the timeline and it's size was very small with a frozen picture only. The audio plays back fine.

I finished the edit and rendered out. It took an hour to render 5 minutes of material. Unusual?

Now that it's rendered, I still have the same problem. Postage stamp sized external freeze frame monitor. Audio is fine. Only get a small frozen picture when I hit play. Otherwise the external monitor screen is blank. All attempts at using the window size in the canvas to no avail. I need to get this thing out to tape to be played at a presentation via a DVCAM deck.

Dont know what I did wrong or what's going on.
help pls.

need to deliver this on Thursday

FC 5
OS 10.3.9
pwrbk 17"
2 gigs of ram

playback= computer to DV deck via firewire. DV deck analog out to monitor.

Dave,

Wow. That's a lot of important stuff to ignore. Especially with a deadline. Next time....

For now, try this: activate the timeline window and go to sequence>settings. If you imported the footage from HDV in letterbox format, then the pixel size aspect should be set to NTSC and the anamorphic box should be unchecked. That do it?

If you have a lot of video layers, photos, graphics, color corrections and fancy motion moves etc., it can easily take an hour to render a five minute show on a powerbook. Although, if that anamorphic box is ticked on, that could be part of the explanation.

Not at all sure about the monitor problem (is view>external video>set to all frames?). What DV deck are you using? From there, to what monitor and using what connection method (composite, component, svid, etc.)?

Clay

Can't help you much if you don't tell us what your actual settings are. Don't trust Easy Setup. Click on a clip and press APPLE-9, note down all the settings. Now click on your timeline and press APPLE-0 and note down the sequence settings. Post them and we should be able to figure out what's wrong.