Exporting to Quicktime - Squished? Conversion?

[John Scott 3]

Okay, I've searched the forums and can't seem to find an answer for my conundrum. I just want to export a Quicktime movie that still retains the 16:9 ratio that I'm applying. Currently, no matter what I do, it squishes the film. I will provide nearly all my settings so that you can know how I'm shooting and editing.

I'm shooting on a Canon XHA1 with the following settings:
Signal STD - HD
Frame Rate - 24f
Comp Out - 1080i/480i

I'm using Final Cut Pro 5.1.4 and I'm trying to export the timeline using Quicktime Conversion so that the 16:9 ratio that I have selected will remain.

My Sequence Settings are as follows:
Frame Size - 1440x1080 (HD 16:9)
Pixel Aspect Ratio - 1440x1080
Anamorphic 16:9 - Selected

Now, I've tried every single setting combination (exaggerating, but nearly all) that I could find in Quicktime Conversion in order to maintain the 16:9 aspect ratio, but it seems that Quicktime wants to squish the 16:9 to 4:3 and that doesn't work for me at all. I've also tried to maintain the aspect ratio by clicking on the "Preserve Aspect Ratio Using: Letterbox." It Didn't work. I use the following settings:
Compression: H.264
Quality: High
As for the size settings, I've pretty much tried everything but it always squishes the image.

I've read some forums about creating a new sequence or something, but that didn't work either. I'm not trying to drop it into iDVD or anything, I just want to export a 16:9 quicktime file so that I can upload it to my website in order to show people.

Is this an issue that others have encountered? I'd really love some help. I figured since the first thing everyone gives me jabs about was my squished films, I would ask how to fix it.

THANKS SO MUCH, guys (and/or Gals)

[EDIT] - I also wanted to point out that when I use Quicktime Conversion to export stills, it does the same thing. Squished.

 

[Noel Evans]

Couple of things first.

My Sequence Settings are as follows:
Frame Size - 1440x1080 (HD 16:9)
Pixel Aspect Ratio - 1440x1080
Anamorphic 16:9 - Selected

Shouldnt have the anamorphic 16:9 selected.

Set your canvas and viewer to show as square pixels - Im pretty sure its the default though (found under the % size button)

As for the export using quicktime conversion:

When you click the options tab you are presented with thre buttons:
Settings
Filter
Size

When your settings are as required click on size button and you have a box with dimensions Im sure your aware of. For a web version (I usually use compressor because I can save all presets and just use the same one over and over ), Anyway you will need to click the dropdown and select CUSTOM, this allows you to put in any numbers you want. As youre starting out from a 1920x1080 16:9 source (1420x1080 NON square pixels), you just need to make sure the dimensions you choose are a widescreen 16:9 format

Thats pretty easy:

1920w/1080h = 1.777778 (or what is referred to in FCP as 1.78:1)


Say you want to decrease frame height to something like 500 pixels
500*1.78 = 890 so 890/500 ouput will maintain your aspect ratio.

Hope this helps. Id try using compressor though, many more options to streamline. Create a preset you like for web and save it. Then just one click conversion within compressor.

 

[adkimery]

For whatever reason QT is not recognizing the "anamorphic flag" so you need to manually enter the proper dimensions when you output the QT file (like ncje said when dividng the Width by the Height you want 1.777778 or at least as close to that as you can get). Depending on how big you want the files to be you could use 1920x1080, 1280x720 for HD sized files or 854x480 for an SD widescreen sized file. If you wanted to go even smaller you could use 640x360 or 480x270.


-A

 

[ignatius]

Hi John,

I'm not a technical wizard or super jargon guy, so I'm not sure what the technical explanation is of what's happening, but essentially (and ncje alludes to this) Quicktime is displaying your output file as non-square pixels (or vice versa, like I said, I don't know technically how to explain it).

So, you have a file that you've output from an FCP timeline that is "widescreen" (16:9). But it appears to display as 4:3. Do this:

Export the timeline as a Quicktime movie (not Using Quicktime Conversion), self-contained, etc.

Open the output file in Quicktime Pro.

Hit Cmd-J.

Select the Video Track.

In the Visual Settings Tab, deselect "Preserve Aspect Ratio".

Enter the correct width (1920) in the Scaled Size width box (above the "Preserve Aspect Ratio" checkbox). I'm assuming that the height value is already correctly set at 1080.

Close this attributes window.

Your video aspet ratio should now display correctly for viewing on your computer.

Now, when you want to compress this file using Quicktime for on-line viewing, you just export as normal but make sure your Size settings in the Export Options panel are set to the end size you want (divide both height and width by the same number, i.e., divide by 2 or 3 or 4 to get a scaled down height and width).

I hope this helps.