ElementFilm
Active member
Tricky question (aren't they all),
I shot in 24Pa using the "squeeze mode." I imported all my clips, made sure the checkbox for "anamorphic" was checked for each clip in the browser, then edited them on a sequence that was checked "anamorphic." Everything is fine, it's all anamorphic at this point... Here's where it gets tricky:
I shot with way too much head room, so I've been adjusting clips, bringing them up to alleviate some of the room. If you watch your footage on a tv or production monitor in 4x3 you can see that you actually do have more room on the clip in FCP than what plays on a standard tv (this is the existence of the tv safe area overlay). So, I found that you can move clips up 15 under the 'motion tab - center' and you won't loose the bottom or have to zoom the clip in to fill up the space. Where it gets tricky is that when you play back in anamorphic your lines start to move (your widescreen lines). I also noticed that if you do any manual zooms, which I love, with the motion tab that the lines move there as well. It's as if I need a matte over the whole picture that never moves. I think I found a solution to this but I want to make sure.
If I create a new sequence that is NOT set to anamorphic and make a FCP movie (non self-contained) and I put that anamorphic FCP movie into the non-anamorphic sequence it creates a letterbox. I can then crop this movie 3 on the top and 3 on the bottom and it seems to alleviate any movement of the lines. My question is this -- am I loosing quality? I know I'm kind of creating my own aspect ration as it's now a little smaller than 16x9, but the nice thing is I know no matter what tv I play this on it's gonna play widescreen (one of my tv's at home has this "16x9" button and sometimes 16x9 dvd's play in 4x3 till you hit this button or 2.35:1 play in 16x9 till you hit the button). There's a part of my that thinks putting it all in a 4x3 sequence (letterbox'd essentially) makes it universally watchable properly. But I want to make sure I'm not loosing anything, specifically cause I shot "squeeze" mode cause my early research indicated that was the way to go with "enhanced for 16x9" revolution. Am I loosing quality taking my anamorphic to this 4x3 sequence and essentially letterboxing? Is there another way to do it, to keep the widescreen lines from moving when you've moved a clip or digitally zoomed in on a clip?
Thanks...
I shot in 24Pa using the "squeeze mode." I imported all my clips, made sure the checkbox for "anamorphic" was checked for each clip in the browser, then edited them on a sequence that was checked "anamorphic." Everything is fine, it's all anamorphic at this point... Here's where it gets tricky:
I shot with way too much head room, so I've been adjusting clips, bringing them up to alleviate some of the room. If you watch your footage on a tv or production monitor in 4x3 you can see that you actually do have more room on the clip in FCP than what plays on a standard tv (this is the existence of the tv safe area overlay). So, I found that you can move clips up 15 under the 'motion tab - center' and you won't loose the bottom or have to zoom the clip in to fill up the space. Where it gets tricky is that when you play back in anamorphic your lines start to move (your widescreen lines). I also noticed that if you do any manual zooms, which I love, with the motion tab that the lines move there as well. It's as if I need a matte over the whole picture that never moves. I think I found a solution to this but I want to make sure.
If I create a new sequence that is NOT set to anamorphic and make a FCP movie (non self-contained) and I put that anamorphic FCP movie into the non-anamorphic sequence it creates a letterbox. I can then crop this movie 3 on the top and 3 on the bottom and it seems to alleviate any movement of the lines. My question is this -- am I loosing quality? I know I'm kind of creating my own aspect ration as it's now a little smaller than 16x9, but the nice thing is I know no matter what tv I play this on it's gonna play widescreen (one of my tv's at home has this "16x9" button and sometimes 16x9 dvd's play in 4x3 till you hit this button or 2.35:1 play in 16x9 till you hit the button). There's a part of my that thinks putting it all in a 4x3 sequence (letterbox'd essentially) makes it universally watchable properly. But I want to make sure I'm not loosing anything, specifically cause I shot "squeeze" mode cause my early research indicated that was the way to go with "enhanced for 16x9" revolution. Am I loosing quality taking my anamorphic to this 4x3 sequence and essentially letterboxing? Is there another way to do it, to keep the widescreen lines from moving when you've moved a clip or digitally zoomed in on a clip?
Thanks...
