Vertically stretched & Letter-boxed video? Can anyone help??

I'm working on a large project (whose deadline is quickly approaching) in which my source video was in the form of 20 DVD's, so I used MPEG Streamclip to input my video clips. I'm using a 17"MacBook Pro with a 2.16 GHz Intel Core Duo processor w/ 2 GB of RAM, a LaCie 500 GB HD through USB 2 and I'm using OS X v10.4.11.

In using Streamclip, I set my "Set-Up" settings to "Custom". I input from Streamclip @ Apple DV/DVCPro-NTSC, and I'm using DV-NTSC in Easy Setup. Now I'm beginning the editing process and for some reason all of the clips are "vertically letter-boxed. That is, that is everything is stretched vertically across the screen with vertical black (letter-boxing) borders. I've gone back and looked at the Q-Time movies created through Streamclip and they look fine, but when I run them through FCP, they get vertically stretched and letter-boxed.

Does anyone have idea why this is, and how it can be fixed?

In a bind and running out of time!
~ John N

> Now I'm beginning the editing process and for some reason all of the clips are "vertically letter-
> boxed. That is, that is everything is stretched vertically across the screen with vertical black
> (letter-boxing) borders.

Vertically stretched *and* letterboxed?
Those two things don't usually come at the same time.
Check the frame size of your clips (APPLE-9 in FCP) against your Sequence Settings (APPLE-0).

Vertically stretched usually means your source DVDs were anamorphic 16:9 and so, when converted into 720x480 DV NTSC clips, they are vertically stretched so that you can edit them as anamorphic 16:9 in FCP. But if so, they shouldn't be letterboxed. Unless whoever had made the DVD had made it anamorphic and added letterbox bars to the anamorphic image, which would have made no sense. Perhaps you should post a still of what you see in FCP.

And also, you can't use USB drives for editing. Gotta be at least FireWire 400.


www.derekmok.com

In sequence settings in FCP, is the anamorphic column checked? Also, is the anamorphic column in your source clip checked? And is your source 16:9 FHA?

I'm suspecting your source clips are 4:3 (without an anamorphic flag), and you're editing in a 16:9 FHA sequence.

Derek, i think he means "pillar boxed".



www.strypesinpost.com

Quote
jj
clips are "vertically letter-boxed

i am thinking you mean pillar box where there is black on the left and right but not top and bottom.

go to your motion tab look at the distortion menu.

click the little triangle to spill it open. the last option is aspect ratio. You may see a number like -33.33 or 33.33 you may even see numbers other than that. Either way set it to its compliment.

if you see -33.33 set it to +33.33. If the reset creates more distortion than previous, meaning if it looks like the new distortion is worse that the old distortion set the aspect to 0.

I never have used mpeg streamclip so i can say as to if you did that process correctly.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

Here's an entry in the FAQ.. Does picture 7 describe what you're seeing?

[www.lafcpug.org]



www.strypesinpost.com

Strypes... Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
That was the problem. For some reason, in Sequence settings, the anamorphic column was checked. I have unchecked it, and everything now looks fine.

On another note, I received a response saying that I shouldn't be using my LaCie 500 Gb HD through USB 2. Is this correct? (I am getting frequent crashes, but usually when trying to bring batches of photos down to the timeline. My photo files are very large--- 3-4 MBs each, but I don't think that should be a problem.)

Thanks, again!!
~ J N

>I received a response saying that I shouldn't be using my LaCie 500 Gb HD through USB 2.

Correcto.

1. Issues with Lacies have popped up on forums for as long as I can remember. (*Cue. GrafixJoe with a publc service announcement)

2. USB drives are a NONO for editing. They deliver data inconsistently and in packets, which causes dropped frames, especially when you're dealing with media which requires a consistent realtime data throughput.

>My photo files are very large--- 3-4 MBs each, but I don't think that should be a problem.

I would think that the dimensions of your photos are very big. You need to scale them down to the size that you need in Photoshop (or Preview) before importing it in for editing, or you'll take a much longer time to render, and Final Cut may crash more frequently.



www.strypesinpost.com

> I would think that the dimensions of your photos are very big. You need to scale them down to
> the size that you need in Photoshop (or Preview) before importing it in for editing, or you'll take a
> much longer time to render, and Final Cut may crash more frequently.

I concur. However, make sure you're not messing with the original files for your stills. Keep those large. Make duplicates of them with new names (eg. if your original file was "Grandma_01.jpg", make a copy and rename it to "Grandma_01_small.jpg" first. Then open the duplicates in Photoshop and make sure they're 72dpi, and no larger than twice the size of your video frame, unless you need to do zooms of more than 200 per cent.


www.derekmok.com

Strypes... Thanks again. I'm afraid that I'm stuck w/ the LaCie for now, but it also allows for outputting via Fire-wire, so I've made that switch (somewhere, someone told me that USB 2 was faster than Fire-wire 400, and I accepted that.)

I've got over 200 photos, but if it will make the system run correctly, I'll change them. Do you know of a way to do them in quantity (i.e. "batch conversion"??)

Thanks again for your help!

Thanks for the tip.

I've got over 200 photos, but if it will make the system run correctly, I'll change them. Do you know of a way to do them in quantity (i.e. "batch conversion"??)

For Photoshop:
[www.creativemac.com]

DVkitchen does it too, if I recall. It's on the left panel of the page, click around.



www.strypesinpost.com

What can I say.... Amazing! It works beautifully!

Thanks, again!

> (somewhere, someone told me that USB 2 was faster than Fire-wire 400, and I accepted that.)

USB2 is faster than FireWire 400 for file copying, but USB doesn't sustain a consistent data rate, so for real-time video it falls behind and will drop frames, cause hangups, etc.


www.derekmok.com

Interesting.
Thanks for the info.

derekmok Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> USB2 is faster than FireWire 400 for file copying,
> but USB doesn't sustain a consistent data rate, so
> for real-time video it falls behind and will drop
> frames, cause hangups, etc.


Actually it has a higher burst rate, but the sustained rate is still slower than FW. FW will make large data transfers quicker than USB, even for file copying.

Well, I've switched my LaCie to Firewire, re-sized (reduced) my pix, and everything is running smoothly. Although FCP and all of its many different ways of completing tasks are starting to come back to me, I'm wondering...

While re-designing a text clip, isn't there a way that I can see my changes as I do them, and isn't there a way that I can simply update the current text rather than having to trash the previous text clip, insert the new one, and keep doing that until I get it the way I want it?

It's these little tricks that are easily forgotten how to perform that drive occasional FCP users crazy. Things aren't necessarily all that intuitive.

Thanks in advance for your help.
J N

> While re-designing a text clip, isn't there a way that I can see my changes as I do them

What are you using? Text or Boris Title 3D? I assume you're using FCP's basic Text tool -- which is pretty weak. You should learn ASAP that when creating any text in FCP, after summoning the tool up into your Viewer, your first step isn't to start designing, but to drag it into the timeline. Then double-click on it in the timeline to call it back into the Viewer. Otherwise, say you spend five minutes choosing fonts and moving text around in the Viewer, then press the wrong button and call up a video clip into the Viewer. Your design work will be gone, because the designed text would have been replaced by the video clip.

So, always put it into the timeline first. Then, park your playhead over the blank text in the timeline, double-click on it and then choose your font. For FCP's basic Text, you see the changes in the Canvas as you make adjustments in the Viewer.

However, Boris Title 3D will give you more control, more options, and more clarity. With that, you see your changes in the design area as you make them.

> and isn't there a way that I can simply update the current text rather than having to trash
> the previous text clip, insert the new one, and keep doing that until I get it the way I want it?

Why are you doing that? Just double-click on the text in the timeline and make the change. The parameters are in the Controls tab of your Viewer.


www.derekmok.com

> Actually it has a higher burst rate, but the sustained rate is still slower than FW. FW will make
> large data transfers quicker than USB, even for file copying.

I never studied the tech specs, but I know that last week I had to copy 2.5TB (!!!!!) of footage from three drives sent by the clients. (2.5TB for a 60-second spot...ho ho ho) Two drives only had USB ports working, and those copied faster than the FireWire 400 drive. It may depend on what drive, as well.


www.derekmok.com

Got it.
Thanks.

Quote
http://www.faculty.iu-bremen.de/birk/lectures/PC101-2003/13firewire/a_broad_overview.htm
Contrary to that, the isochronous transfer mode allows for guaranteed access to the bus after a certain time interval. This way, devices that need to send their data in real-time can ensure a continuous stream of data, an important feature in Audio/Video (A/V) applications.

Here ya go.

I don't think USB 2.0 has this feature. USB 2.0 has a transfer speed of 480 Mb/s compared to FW 400 at 400 Mb/s, but that is max data transfer (including overheads required by the interface).



www.strypesinpost.com