problem with "letterboxed" footage in pp

[matthewd5]

ok, so i have a ton of footage i shot with my dvx-100a in 24p using the letterbox option. not anamorphic, just the basic black bars superimposed in-camera with the stock lens...

so the problem is i have footage that is 856x480, i am using a canopus raptor rt2 card, it has a preset called 16:9 that is 856x480 with square pixels.

the problem is when i use this the video runs waaayy off the safe areas.

plus even worse, the project needs to re-render all the time.

i just know i'm missing something, i want the image to come out symetrical (not squashed) and i don't want to have to re-render all the time.

matthew

[PrestonH]

Hi,
I'm a Canopus user too. If you shot your footage letterboxed then it's essentially a 4:3 image with black bars. Try selection a standard 720x480 D1/DV NTSC ( 0.9) preset... assuming you're not working in PAL which would be 720x576 (1.067).

[matthewd5]

that is how it was with other cameras but with this one for whatever reason what i have is 856x480 and the pixels are 1.0 square.

what i need is a way to shrink it to 720 wide and add more to the black bars?

matthew

[PrestonH]

That's a really odd size and I'm sure it has nothing to do with the camera. I've captured the same type of footage via Storm2 and it's displayed correctly while reporting a 720x480 frame size.

Have you double checked your capture settings? Make sure they're set to 720x480 with the 4:3 aspect un-checked - and the correct compressor selected : Canopus Raptor (or whatever). If Video For Windows was accidently selected for capture the frame size could also have been changed by accident. I believe if the Canopus codec is selected you don't even have the option of changing the frame size (resolution) - it's locked in at 720x480.

[matthewd5]

i've checked that a couple of times and there is no place in the canopus dv capture program to change that.

fwiw, that size is the canopus preset for ntsc widescreen.

matthew

[Neil Rowe]

..again the footage is just letterboxed - it is 720 x 480 you should capture and edit as such.. if you want to use a 16:9 project, and conform the footage to 1.2 pixel ratio widscreen dv, and then crop it to the image area and expand it to fill the 16:9 *window for editing and export, you can do so , -typical 1.0 square pixel dimensions when exporting that 16:9 project for computer use are around 864 x 480 .. the dvx dosent quite letterbox as much as it should , so if your doing the math based off the image you have you might end up around that 856 or what not (which is actually closer to a true 16:9---480 / 9 * 16 = proper mathamatical 16:9 horizontal dimensions--- but then if the pixel are suposed to be 1.2 ratio for dv widescreen and we take 740 * 1.2 = a completely differernt #, so theres alot of little technicalities that go into determining what exactly 16:9 dv is in the different pixel languages)..but as you said it was a canopus preset.. and youll probably find that the term 16:9 is not taken to stringently as far as exactness in alot of aplications and equipment. alot of companies just get somwhere close to what 16:9 is and call it good enough- all wide screen hdtvs probably arent exact 16:9 dimensions either, but nobody really cares/notices, but just crop a little more if it looks to squished to you when exported as 864 x 480. realistically you probably wont notice a real difference at all though. *
-about the rendering issue, that is odd it shouldnt be rendering at all for editing, and only rendering once on export. so im not sure what steps your taking during these proccesses to make it render 2x.

[matthewd5]

it seems that the problem is all in the canopus capture utility, it is writing it as 856x480

i already captured it all in the canopus utility but i have redone some of it using the premere pro capture and it is o.k. in there.

just a pain in the ass to recapture it all, plus then i have to run the canopus conversion utility to put it into their codec.

there are zero settings in the canopus capture utility to tell it what sort of aspect ratio the footage is.

matthew

[PrestonH]

Sorry to hear you're having so much trouble. I take it from one of your posts that there is a Canopus preset for widescreen but not for 4:3?

Have you presented your problem on the Canopus forum? There's an area for the RaptorRT guys:

http://forum.canopus.com/ubbthreads.php?Cat=

[matthewd5]

there are presets in the canopus for 4:3 and 16:9

if i use the standard then it re-renders constantly, if i use the 16:9 it ends up being oversized.

i have it working now, just by capturing the video in native premere pro seems to work fine.

so the problem is canopus. big surprise!

i posted it on there, their forums aren't anywhere near as useful as here or dvinfo.net

most everyone asks what kind of camera and when they here 24p they assume its because of that.

matthew

[Guest]

there are presets in the canopus for 4:3 and 16:9

if i use the standard then it re-renders constantly, if i use the 16:9 it ends up being oversized.

i have it working now, just by capturing the video in native premere pro seems to work fine.

so the problem is canopus. big surprise!

i posted it on there, their forums aren't anywhere near as useful as here or dvinfo.net

most everyone asks what kind of camera and when they here 24p they assume its because of that.

matthew

[Guest]

You are a complete IDIOT. First of all actually acknolwedge that you are wrong and take the advice of other people on the board that KNOW what they are talking about. You shot letterboxed footage. Letterbox footage is not widescreen footage, it is footage that is 4x3 (720x480pixels) that has bars on the top and bottom.

You created the project wrong in the first place by capturing it as widescreen footage when it really is not that but normal 4x3.

Don't blame a company that puts out good solid products because of your own USER error. I put my camera on it that you setup the project wrong and captured wrong. I have used canopus products for years and guarantee that is what you have done. USER ERROR not Canopus Error

[Neil Rowe]

as far as the rerendering,it sounds like you may having some sort of hardware/softeware compatibility issue. if the canopus is rerendering just to run in standard 4:3 mode. make sure that all of your drivers are updated with the most cuirrent available, and check the canopus website or knowledge base for any known issues such as this. they may have some patch to download or something.. ppro is still pretty new, and hasnt had all bugs figured out yet. if all this has been done, you need to be sure that your system is configured as recommended, and that the software/hardware install was done in the right order. also make sure you have the project settings correct, go over everything to be sure.

[matthewd5]

i have duplicated the results repeatedly, i did NOT make the project as a letterbox or widescreen.

the footage is 720x480 and the pixel ratio should be .9 but both the canopus and matrox capture utilities capture it as 720x480 with a pixel ratio of 1.2

matthew

[Neil Rowe]

i have a matrox rtx100 x and its imports anything just fine. what matrox import are you using?

[matthewd5]

i used the matrox tools utility.

i even imported a short clip while i had someone on the phone from matrox and it keeps thinking its 1.2 pixels even though the premeire settings are definitely for a standard 720x480 .9

but again, it captures fine if i take out the matrox card and put in an adaptec bare bones 1394 card. so it would seem it is the matrox avi format that is screwing me up?

same thing happened with canopus.

the only fix is to capture using very basic 1394 card

matthew

[Neil Rowe]

use the 1394 capture from within premiere, and just set the capture codec to the matrox codec. the matrox cards work as a reg firewire card for capture through your nle. i capture through premiere all the time through the matrox card 1394. in fact thats the only way i do it. *premiere should bring it in fine using the matrox card driver and codec. ive never used the matrox capture utility. your nle can do all the same stuff so whats the point? why bother with th2 different programs..espescially if its giving you a problem.

[Johan]

You can just simply import the file to a 4:3 project, then use scaling ( inside motion tab ) in PPro

[Neil Rowe]

..no no no dont scale it..if your in ppro you just right click on the file in the project bin, and select "interpret footage" which allows you to set the pixel aspect ration for any clip or file you import. you can import them all at whatever way your utility wants, and then just select them all in the bin, and interpret them to the right playback ratio if you want. if your in 6.5 you need to just set the pixel aspect ration in the project setup dialog , and it will interpret all footage to the aspect.

[Johan]

that's true, but i have done both ways: it seems no visual difference between them
It just seems easier to control what your final letterbox will be by scaling

[Neil Rowe]

.. the only issue with scaling, is that your forcing a render. but most likely will have the same info. most of the time youll render anyway though.

[Johan]

this scaling method is what suggested by ppro help.
see Help-Search "letterbox" you will find howto

[Neil Rowe]

are you talking about scaling letterbox footage to a 16:9 window, or simply changing the pixel aspect ratio?

[Johan]

oops, sorry, what I said is letterboxing is easier by scaling if you shoot " squeezed " mode not "letterboxed" mode

[Neil Rowe]

...true. you dont have to touch letterbox footage to make it letterbox. but the issue he is expieriencing, is simply that his letterbox footage, is being imported with the wrong pixel aspect ratio. he just needs to change iterpret it to the coprrect ratio, and edit in standard 4:3 hes probably got it working already though.