exporting an anamorphic quicktime

HI Again,

More questions in the quest for 16:9.

I'm trying to export a 16:9 DVNTSC quicktime from an anamorphic sequence using 16:9 footage. The result with FCP 5.1 is 4:3.

I checked the setting and made sure that I had 16:9 selected in the export window but still no luck.

When I export a 16:9 mpeg2 with Compressor, I get an anamorphic movie.

What am I doing wrong?

thanks again,
Rachel

We gotta clear up your terminology.

What is it exactly that you want?

a) An anamorphic 16:9 movie file that is vertically stretched and can be burnt to an anamorphic 16:9 DVD; or
b) A letterboxed movie file with black bars on top and bottom, and the image already crunched down?

An anamorphic movie is supposed to be vertically stretched. It requires an anamorphic 16:9-enabled device (eg. monitor, DVD player) to crunch it down to what you see in FCP's Canvas and Viewer.


www.derekmok.com

Let?s assume Rachel wants to export 16:9 footage to B) letterboxed movie file. Is there a way to do that in QT or in FCP?s export settings?

One possible solution is to set the right size for 16:9 in the QT manually and then export it again. It will then display perfectly normal without black borders or anamorphic stretching.

Of course, this method is only suitable for web distribution. The file with manual size-adjustments cannot be re-used in an anamorphic sequence or printed to tape

Okay,

I'm delivering quicktimes for the web and also quicktimes to burn to DVD. I don't want the letterboxed version.

I seem to be able to get a letterbox if I distort the clips -33.33 in a 4:3 sequence and export as a 4:3 quicktime movie.

I would also like to export the anamorphic sequences as a 16:9 movie that will play on the computer 16:9, not the 720x576 movie that will look stretched until you show it on a 16:9 monitor.

Would I export the movie 720x405?

Also, as for the MPEG2 for the DVD. How would I export that? As the anamophic ntsc setting in Compressor.

Thanks!!!

Rachel

Unless you are exporting straight from the timeline to the web I would recommend you stretch it by changing the pixel size to widescreen when you export the final FLV file or whatever you plan to use.
For example.
Take the 720*576 file from FCP and render it out as a 512*288 flv movie.

When burning into DVD you simply have to tell DVD studio pro (Or whatever you use) to display the file as 16:9 (Which is what Derek explained above). An anamorphic file does not have more information that a 4:3 file, the pixels are just stretched when viewed properly

Johan Polhem
Motion Graphics
www.johanpolhem.com

So I want to get this correctly:

I would export a 720x576 quicktime movie to say DVNTSC and then,

export if again with flash or Sorensen Squeeze as a wide screen movie in flash?

I don't yet understand how to make a flash movie for the web (I can't get the .swf/flv thing straight) so all I would like to do is export a quicktime movie as an MPEG 4 (for example) that plays a 16:9 frame without the letterbox.

I exported DV 16:9 elements with Compressor (mpeg2/aiff). Can I encode them to a DVD and get the proper playback. Quicktime plays the mpeg2 as a 720x404 frame.

Rachel

With respect to exporting for the web, I've had strange experiences. I have about 8 trailers on the web. I did each of them a little differently (as I was experimenting with the best way to do it) but the end result was the same, because youtube, google, etc, all of them configure the movies to their own specs ... in flash.

I found out if I had a 16:9 anamorphic movie in FCP, I had to stretch it out to 720 by 405 and make it an mpeg4. It didn't matter how I uploaded it to youtube; they display everything as letterbox. So the movie looks 16:9 normal with black bars on top and bottom. The actual size of the movie frame is 4:3 or 720 by 480. Even if you upload your movie as a 320 x 240, they'll stretch it to 720x480 or bigger -- fill the whole screen.

I'd hoped I could force them to drop the black bars by configuring my clips differently, but no such luck. No matter how I uploaded it they posted it as 4:3. So the actual ratio of the movie could've been 1:2.33 or 1:1.85 or whatever and they posted it as a 4:3 letterbox version with my movie being displayed within the box.

Of course, the best way to submit a movie for the web, therefore, (IMO) is 4:3. Because that way you're getting the most image out of it -- not talking esthetically.

As for exporting an anamorphic movie for DVD, that started out as anamorphic, there is no problem with DVD. It will end up as anamorphic on DVD -- if you keep it anamorphic all the way through compression to mpeg2.

And here's the crazy thing (LOL) -- I'm beginning to think that, since 90% of the TV sets are now 16:9, why bother with letterbox? Let the 10% of the people watch my movie squeazed! I'm planning to release everything anamorphic, because I hate my film getting stretched by all those people that have the 16:9 TVs, who don't bother to adjust their screens to see the letterbox version. ... There are a handful of people who say they do, but I've never seen anybody do it :-)

Correct me if I'm wrong about the letterbox format.

OK, ive been working alot in anamorphic because it just looks better than DV and alot of my stuff is for web. Here's my settings.

First of all, make sure everythings edited properly as Anamorphic in FCP, i run into this all the time with people unsure and are dropping Ani-clips into 4x3 timelines. Although this is easy to fix, just click the anamorphic button in timeline settings and select all clips and remove attributes to get rid of the Distort

Anyway, if your delivering to non YouTube, its best to change the actual pixel dimensions. Since i have a limited audience, i try and deliver high quality. So i select HQ broadband, just below LAN, and than change the size to 640 x 360...

check out a sample...
[www.benscottproductions.com]

Nice job on that, Scott. I enjoyed it. Nice music too. So now I gotta get my backside to Utah; like I needed one more thing to do...

HarryD

Guys.

I think its time we get a few things straight.
There seems to be a lot of confusion in regards to 16:9 vs 4:3.

Firstly, there is no difference in size between the two.
In PAL, they are both 720 * 576 and it has no relevance whatsoever how you capture, edit or export them. If you capture something as widescreen the only difference is that the file gets an additional piece of information attached to it that says "display widescreen" but this is not important as this can be easily changed after the fact in basically any application in your workflow.

The only thing to remember is:
If you shoot it with a widescreen lens - it should be displayed as widescreen.
Theoretically you can ignore this until the very last stage where you put it on the DVD and you tell DVD SP to display the track as widescreen or 4:3.
If you are making a video for the net the same theory goes:
Just resize it last thing you do before you put it on-line and dont ever put black bars on top and bottom on anything unless you are contrained to displaying your movie within a 4:3 area.
(Which rarely is the case except for youtube)

To output a widescreen file to DVD as 720 * 404 is WRONG.
Why would you want to make the file smaller when in fact you want to create an illusion of the file being bigger?
If anything, a correct resize should be 1024 * 576 and that is a hell of a difference.
(720*1.42 = 1024)

I have seen this incorrect resizing done many times and the result on a 4:3 television is fine wheareas on a widescreen TV you not only get poorer quality but also a smaller picture that results in black bars on the sides as well as the top and bottom.

If you just get your head around this you will save yourselves a LOT of trouble in the future.
I recommend that you read a very detailed reply by Derekmok on the subject about a week ago.

Filmman,
At normal size, YouTube slaps black bars on your video. But at full screen YouTube does honor my widescreen output from Compressor. I just checked the box in the Geometry pane to > Preserve Widescreen Aspect Ratio.

I did a test here:




The original is 720P DVCPro HD compressed to h.264. It looks OK in the small size, but at full screen the image falls apart in some areas due to the primitive Spark codec.

MySpace has better quality, but will not honor the widescreen flag I set in Compressor. By the way, you can join "tellys army" on MySpace here >>>.

Kevin Monahan
Social Support Lead, DV Products
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