Output Anamorphic to Beta SP

OK, I have hours of footage that were shot on a Panasonic 24p camera in 16:9 mode. I can import it correctly into FCP (5.0.3) by making the DV codec correct, but naturally it isn't going to go to Beta in anything but 4:3. At this point, I am faced with editing it in a 4:3 sequence and using the Motion tab to squeeze it to the correct ratio. It will then appear letterboxed, which isn't a problem, but rendering all that footage is....

Does anyone else have a better solution?

FCP 5.0.3, G5 1.8 Ghz, 2.5 G RAM, AJA IO

Edit anamorphic as anamorphic and keep that for your digital master. For output to 4:3 letterbox, put that anamorphic seq into a 4:3 one and FCP will letterbox it for you.

Graeme



[www.nattress.com] - Plugins for FCP-X

Render only after you've locked picture. And there's no need to apply Motion settings to all those clips individually -- nest the whole 16:9 sequence (as Graeme describes) into a non-16:9 sequence for outputting a movie file.

Luckily, FCP versions since FCP3 have been able to render the letterbox crunch very quickly. It used to be a six-hour overnight render for a 24-minute short film!

Thanks gents.

This one is a doozie. -- I have been working on this SD widescreen animation project for awhile. Seems to have its share of strange problems, which so far I've either solved (often with your advice and ideas - thanks) or figured out some work-around.

Current issues: 1) Black frames in rendered Quicktimes from FCP (playback off timeline is fine) 2) an Anamorphic sequence that doesn't want to be letterboxed anymore when dropped into a 4:3 sequence.

The animations come to me as individual scenes: quicktimes @ 8bit uncompressed, 24fps, 720x486 (squeezed from 960x540 sq pixel files)

I check them all into the project as Anamorphic files, and everyone oohs and ahhs cause we're going to have a kick ass widescreen cartoon! For the next one, we're going to export 23.98 QTs rather than 24fps if that makes a difference.

I'm using BMD's decklink extreme with FCP setup: 23.98 for seq & capture, 29.97 device control, and BM 8bit for playback, because I can't get playback on my NTSC monitor if I use the Black Magic NTSC 23.98 setting (?!)...At the start of the project, I was working in a 24 fps timeline and playback through the BMD was set to NTSC 23.98, which worked fine... in those precious moments when FCP wasn't crashing all over itself. I was informed that BMD does not support true 24 frame projects - so I dumped everything into a 23.98 and noticed no problems with the 24frame QTs already rendered and edited.

Lately, as the project grows in size: FCP project file is now a whopping 195megs. (I just read derek's post on splitting clips and sequences into separate projects and have done that.), I have noticed black frames at the ends of my clips whenever I add an effect to them, ie: mask shape. Take it off - and no more black frame.
When asked to export a QT with Timecode window burn this afternoon, I experienced the whole shebang : Sequence wouldn't become letterboxed when nested into a 4:3 sequence. Ok...Well, the QT is for internal use only and we do have a 16:9 TV so I'll fry that fish later, I think to myself.
But then when I lay on the TC filter and export a movie -- A black frame at almost every edit point! I tried multiple ways and combinations to fix this - Nesting, not nesting and applying the TC filter to a blank text layer, trying to dump it back into a 24 frame timeline ( which turned the video to black), rendering QT using qt conversion, QT self contained, Reference... all to no avail. Then I got socked with an "out of memory" error. I dumped a bunch of render files and got rid of that reminder. Ultimately, "out of patience, " I just rendered out a self contained QT at current settings, dropped that into a 4:3 sequence, applied the TC filter and re-rendered. Looks great, plays great. I will kill myself if I have to do this every time, Or you just might if you have to read something like this again... What do you think is going on here? Thank you guys for your time.

498gigs currently avail on 1.4 TB RAID FCP 5.0.4 , OSX 10.4.5, DUAL 2.7, 4.5 GB RAM,