Mixing squeezed and letterbox footage

skinnyboy

skinnyboy

Active member
This is a good one.
We shot 2 tapes worth of footage three weeks ago using squeeze for widescreen. I have since made a rough cut of all that footage.
Today, we shot the remaining scenes, but they were shot letterbox for widescreen.

We discovered this halfway through shooting today, and decided to keep shooting letterbox because it will be easier to convert the squeezed footage to letterbox than vice versa.
Oh, and the squeezed footage is all outdoors, the letterboxed all indoors, so matching isn't an issue.

My question(s) is (are):
How would you deal with this (reshoots are out of the question)?
Is there a simple way to convert the footage I've already edited without losing the edits?
Is there a magical fix that will fix it without any effort on my part? (just kidding about that last one)

Thanks!

Jason
 
I'll go ahead and answer my own question in case it helps someone else.

FCP doesn't seem to care the format of footage and allows it all in a timeline together. The biggest issue is transitions between the two footage types - it won't alow me to do an "edge wipe" across the two. BUT, I can do one on the end of one clip and the beginning of another and move them together manually to get around that. Not sure how other transitions would be handled.
I've applied filters, done color correction and exported several different ways, and it always looks great and the exported footage looks the same way it did in my FCP timeline.

Never having worked in 16:9 before, I must say I am impressed with the way FCP handles this issue. Turns out there was a "magical" fix after all - not really a fix, just the way FCP works.
 
argh!

argh!

Here's hoping someone keeps reading this post...

OK, I thought my troubles were over, but now I've hit a wall:
the squeezed footage is 16x9, the letterbox is NOT.
How do I know? Well, the letterbox is wider, so I started applying widescreen mattes to it, and it matches the squeeze EXACTLY when I do a 1.78:1, which is 16x9.
Near as I can see, the letterbox is 1.66:1, which is not 16x9 (I lack the math skills to figure out what it is).

What the hey? Looking at the specs for the DVX, it says 16x9 squeeze and letterbox. Am I missing something here?

I'll apply the matte if I have to, but I'd rather they match out of the box (so to speak), since we framed rather specifically on some shots.
 
I Feel Your Pain

I Feel Your Pain

I feel sorry for you Skinnyboy, being in here all by yourself and all, so I'll join you for a bit. I am having a similar issue right now, buy by mixing squeeze footage with full screen graphics. I'm not sure how it will end up in the final render, but I do know that the computer will see the graphics as 4:3. So instead of using masking, I'm cropping the full screen stuff on the top an bottom to roughly the same size of the squeeze footage, I have no idea if this will work better or even if it will work at all. I'll probably have all kinds of issues once I export in 16X9. If you find all of your answers before I find mine, I'll meet you back here and we'll discuss.
Good luck
 
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