dvx to imovie - widscreen?

G

gpsmith

Member
wasn't sure where to post this. also, new here so sorry if this was answered already.

i shot with the letterbox option on the dvx. when i imported to imovie the image was stretched wide. how can i avoid this? should i use the stretched option on the dvx. should i just shoot 4:3? i know imovie is limited but its what i got. will fcp be any different?

in short, how can i shoot 16:9 on dvx, edit in imovie and have it look good?

thanks,
gps
 
You did shoot 4:3.

Letterbox is 720x480 4:3 letterbox. That means there are permanent black bars on your 4:3 video. I don't know iMovie at all, but maybe there is a setting you can create a 4:3 sequence and not a 16:9 sequence and edit it there. Maybe also there is a way to crop the export in QT. Not sure.

Now...

Shooting 16:9...

That would be set the dvx to record in SQUEEZE mode (not letterbox). This also will be 4:3, but ANAMORPHIC. This should be read in iMovie as 16x9 with NO black bars top and bottom.

If you had FCP (again, I don't know iMovie so not sure how to do this there) you can take the LETTERBOX footage and drop it in a 16x9 sequence and scale it up to 133.33 percent. You'll loose a little quality but not too much depending on what you do with it from there.

Hope that helps.

CaptM
 
Thanks CaptM,

It helps, but more for the future. I'm still stuck with this stubby footage. I realize that i shot 4:3 but imovie is reading it wide and there is no import settings that i can find to change it. maybe importing to QT Pro, but not sure

gps
 
there is no setting in preferences. when you open a new project it asks, but the 4:3 setting just crops the frame. image is still distorted. i talked to apple and they said imovie just cant read that setting(letterbox), they think. i think my only solution is to get fcp. which i should anyway.

gps
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top