How do I take 720p down to 640x480?

[ceek]

I shot a 4 min interview at 720p and rendered it out as a beautiful .mov file. But the client now needs it in 640x480 (for an online distributor).

How in the world do I get this into a "letterbox" form and get it to 4:3? I have iMovie, AE, FCP (though I don't know how to use FCP very well), and Flip4Mac as basic tools.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Peace]

Use handbrake.

 

[ceek]

Use handbrake.

Woah. I never would have thought of that. No wonder you're a demi-god. Looking into it now...

 

[ceek]

Use handbrake.

I don't see what settings would do this; any particular options that you note? It still displays that output will be set at 720p...

 

[Peace]

Select "video preview" and you will see different ratios listed. That and you can set it manually.

But to be honost changing a native 16X9 aspect ratio to a 4X3 will cut out part ( the sides) of the movie.

I don't understand why your client needs it in 640X480 instead of 480i.. I think thats 720X480. Not sure.

 

[ceek]

Thanks Peace. Got it. [wipes brow]

Yeah, mean neither. They says it's a coding thing (in which case they really need to move with the times!).

Thanks for your help.

 

[G.T.]

Select "video preview" and you will see different ratios listed. That and you can set it manually.

But to be honost changing a native 16X9 aspect ratio to a 4X3 will cut out part ( the sides) of the movie.

I don't understand why your client needs it in 640X480 instead of 480i.. I think thats 720X480. Not sure.

Sorry but is 480i not just interlaced, it will still be 640*480 not 720*480

 

[KeithPratt]

Sorry but is 480i not just interlaced, it will still be 640*480 not 720*480

TV standard is 720x480i (non-square pixels). For the web 640x480p is better.

But to be honost changing a native 16X9 aspect ratio to a 4X3 will cut out part ( the sides) of the movie.

Not if it's letterboxed. But in this day and age it's unusual for them not to be asking for 640x360.

 

[CaptainChunk]

Yes, use a frame size of 640x360 (1.78:1, or 16:9) if you want the aspect ratio to look correct on a computer screen. 640x480 is a 1.33:1, or 4:3 ratio and the video would vertically stretch to fill the frame.

 

[advres]

For the future, you can always make a timeline in FCP the size you need to export, drop your video in and adjust there. As long as you are making it smaller and not bigger it will work fine. I personally like to keep the final mix timeline and dop that timeline into any size I need to export. That way if you need to make changes to anything, you make it to the full mix and it changes all your little timelines. This is nice if you need to make multiple different versions (mov, wmv, etc) the timelines are already made once you make the changes just export each timeline and you are done.

 

[Mac_Max]

Just wanted to add that you can also use the excellent MPEG Streamclip program to resize/transcode. I prefer it to handbrake as it has more options & formats available (anything Quicktime will support via plugins) such as XDCAM, DVCPro, & ProRes.