weird cropping

See if this makes any sense to anyone...

I brought in several DV clips of various sizes from various sources. Some are 720x304, some 720x272 and some standard 720x480. The timeline is set up for 720x480 DV NTSC 29.97.

As I view each clip in the viewer all is well. When I add the non-standard size clips to the timeline, the bottom third or so of the frame is cut off. It's not that the clip is too big for the frame; the whole frame is there horizontally, letterboxed as it should be. The clip appears to be the right shape, but only half the image is displayed.

If I double-click the clip in the timeline, it opens in the Viewer cut off the same as in the Canvas. But if I Match-Frame the clip into the viewer, it displays the full frame, uncropped.

Any ideas?

I have no idea. But here's a work-around:

Bring all of your 720x304 clips into a file alone. See if they look fine. If they do, export a new movie and use that in your project.

Otherwise, I'm stumped.

Check the Motion tab of the clips for Scale, Center and Distort settings. It sounds to me like FCP is applying some kind of automatic distortion/repositioning of your clips.

I checked the motion tab before I posted. The Basic Motion and Crop functions are unaffected. The Distort function has a -50 Aspect Ratio adjustment, but zeroing that merely vertically stretches the cropped image; it does nothing to restore what's being cut off.

These clips were extracted from a commercial DVD (for an artist's demo reel), so I originally got them as mp4's, which I converted to DV before importing them. But they play fine in the Viewer, so I don't see how their origin would be a factor... But could I be missing something there?

That seemed like a good idea. When I put the clips in a new timeline with their specs they looked terrific, but exported out they looked horrible: all soft and jaggy.

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you would do well by the first podcast

-wow, i think i just came off as some sort of early 1900 oil barron?



Amateur Teacher