4:3 Fury

March 7, 2011 1:42 AM

Help me unstrectch my video (most likely a very basic Final Cut Pro question).

So I have a video file (.mov) with the unorthodox resolution of 600 x 600 pixels.

I'd like to create a 4:3 DVD in which the resolution is kept intact and black borders fill the remaining area, as opposed to the original 600 x 600 video being stretched to produce a 720 x 480 video.

Using the standard Share->DVD procedure in Final Cut Pro (version 7 on a Mac) produces a horribly stretched video.

I tried to Google the problem but due to my lack of knowledge in video editing lingo I was not able to find a definitive answer.

posted by howiamdifferent to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

Best answer: Make a new final cut project.

Make a sequence that is 720x480 and either 23.976 fps or 29.97. (alternatively you can use an easy setup for this). Open this sequence.

Load your 600x600 video in the left side monitor. Then press F10 to Overwrite it into your sequence.

Final cut will automatically resize your footage to letterbox it.

Export and make 21st century DVDs.
posted by schmattakid at 3:52 AM on March 7, 2011

a 4:3 DVD in which the resolution is kept intact

If you mean retaining 600 lines of vertical resolution, then it's not possible. DVDs have a fixed resolution of either 720x480 (NTSC) or 720x576 (PAL), so the image is going to have to be resampled down to 480x480 (or 576x576) prior to adding horizontal padding.
posted by Rhomboid at 8:59 AM on March 7, 2011

Response by poster: It worked! Thank you so much, schmattakid.
posted by howiamdifferent at 10:30 AM on March 7, 2011