FCP, Toast and aspect ratios

[tmccambridge]

Hiya

I created an animation in After Effects, exported it as a quicktime animation movie with 720x405 dimensions. I then put all my clips together in final cut pro, with settings as 'Custom 16:9', 720x405 DV-PAL.

I then save my movie out as a Quicktime movie, and when I play it back, it looks fine at the 16:9 aspect ratio etc when I play it back on my mac.

HOWEVER: When I import it into Toast, it's automatically setting the size to 720x576, and thus when burnt and played back on a computer it plays back at completely the wrong aspect ratio.

How can I avoid this?

Any help would be very much appreciated!

 

[WinterMute]

Hiya

I created an animation in After Effects, exported it as a quicktime animation movie with 720x405 dimensions. I then put all my clips together in final cut pro, with settings as 'Custom 16:9', 720x405 DV-PAL.

I then save my movie out as a Quicktime movie, and when I play it back, it looks fine at the 16:9 aspect ratio etc when I play it back on my mac.

HOWEVER: When I import it into Toast, it's automatically setting the size to 720x576, and thus when burnt and played back on a computer it plays back at completely the wrong aspect ratio.

How can I avoid this?

Any help would be very much appreciated!

You'll need to export from FCP using the Quicktime Exporter, in the Options window under Movie Settings you'll find a button marked "Size" in there is a check box for "preserve aspect ratio using:" and then a drop down that includes the ever wonderful Letterbox option!!

Select PAL 720x576 4:3 for dimensions, and then letterbox for preserved aspect ratio, you'll get a new video in 720x576 that plays your original content back correctly letterboxed in the 4:3 aspect ratio.

I'm not sure which codecs Toast likes, but DV Stream is a good bet, if not H264 is probably your best bet. The problem lies in the way Toast deals with the MPEG2 encoding which must be a 720x576 4:3 aspect image.

This should cure the problem, or you could simply use iDVD to author your work.