stretching 4:3 to 16:9

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DVX100Shooter

Veteran
Here at my job, the editors have to use what we call WINGS to convert 4:3 footage over to 16:9 ratio. They showed me how they do it on our Grass Valley systems but how is it done with FCP? Any ideas? The wings part should be easy as I can use a background in Motion or Livetype for that and add the Letterbox. Just not sure how to do the conversion.
 
Well I work for a TV station and we have already started broadcasting in HD. For File footage and video we get from freelancers that still shoot with Betacam SP or MiniDv cameras, that b-roll has to be treated before it can air. So the editors have an effect they call Wings which they leave in one of their bins. The wings would be a graphic of some sort that you would see on the right and left side of the clip. Kinda like having a background and then adding a clip on top of that, then scaling that clip down to reveal the background graphic on the sides. Then they add the letterbox bars. I could have sworn there was another step in the process to be complete. For everything shot 16:9, we don't have to go through that process.

I got to thnking that at some point we all (those of us that work in video production) will have to do this at some point when we need to use non 16:9 footage to air on a HD broadcasting channel. So I was just seeing if anyone has used FCP to do this thats all...
 
So you DO want the space on the left and right...

In older versions of FCP, when you put 4:3 into a 16:9 it adjusted the aspect ratio FOR YOU (ugh) and ended up giving you 'stretched' footage... short and fat people. These days, FCP knows better and assumes you want to keep aspect ratio (Motion tab... DISTORT) set at 0 and if you 'want' to fill the screen you would adjust scale.

So... I guess just dropping it into/onto a 16:9 should give you the 4:3 with black bars on the sides that you can put on a video track over or under depending on what you really want to do with the scalling you mentioned.

Good luck though,

CaptM
 
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