formatting video for 16:9 tv

I've just reached a point of confusion that would make the Joker look like a sane person.

I'm helping produce a video that will be shown on a plasma tv. the tv is a 42inch 16:9 aspect ratio. pixels: 1024 x 768.

the video will have pictures and later on as it develops will have some video but that's later on down the line.

right now i'm just testing with pictures and text. I want to frame the pictures and text so that it looks good in 16:9. I don't want the video to have the black bars on the sides which it seems to have. It looks like it's still 720x480.

I've tried different settings then admitted that I don't know what I'm doing or how to get teh results I want.

can anyone clear my mind and help me formulate a way to attack (HYAAA!!!) this problem?

I thought I could just change the settings on a new sequence. then export, make sure it looked right, then add it to iDVD and burn a dvd to play.

A bit more information would be helpful, such as the original format and how you made it look like 16:9.

I am assuming that the footage is some actual NTSC 4:3 footage that has been anamofized. That means you chose the anamorphic codec to trim pixels off the bottom and top of each frame to simulate a 16:9 looking picture?

LCD and Plasma displays use HD codecs of 720P or 1080i and some will try to "fit to picture" whatever is presented to it. if you are starting out using 720x480 frames you will only manage to get a BAD looking video when blown up.

Best to start with the right number of pixels for either 720 or 1080.

there's no footage as of yet.

I was only using .tiff and jpeg images and text

It sounds as if you're working in a 4:3 sequence. Check item properties for your sequence. It needs to be anamorphic DV (or standard definition format) or an HD format to be widescreen.

I created a new sequence and made it 16:9.
I didnt want to make it anamorphic bc we want to eliminate the bars so tht the video uses up the whole screen.

or...am i not understanding this correctly?

If you want it to be widescreen you must make a widescreen sequence. There should be no black bars in a widescreen sequence, unless your still images aren't widescreen. If they're 4:3 you'll have to scale them to fill the widescreen frame.

Please give more information and exact details about sequence formats, media formats, etc. You're asking questions in generalities so we can only answer in generalities.

You're confusing "anamorphic" and "letterboxed". The only way in standard-definition to have a wide frame without letterboxing is by making it anamorphic (what Tom means by "widescreen sequence". If the image is "letterboxed" -- black bars on top and bottom -- then it is no longer in anamorphic form. Read this:

[www.lafcpug.org]


www.derekmok.com

Here's what I have so far:
Settings for the sequence:
- Frame Size: 1280x720 HDTV 720p (16:9)
- Pixel Aspect Ratio: Square
- UNCHECKED Anamorphic 16:9

Then when I export to quicktime movie file the setting is on HDV - 720p60.

and it looked like what I was looking for. BUT, of course, it only exported 35 seconds of a 1:11 sec sequence...

LOLOLOL...

Sounds to me that you've just not realized that you have to resize those pictures so that they are larger than the sequence frame

FCP will automatically blow up your source so that it will fit entirely within the frame and no more ... if you want to get rid of the remaining black bars then you'll need to scale the source a little further until the balck bars are no longer visible ... of course this means that some of the source will be cropped as it will lie outside the sequence frame. You'll have to reframe this as necessary to ensure the right bits of the source remain visible.