Strange pillar box on left side only when importing .m4v to iMovie HD

[Zukum]

I have some 853x480 widescreen .m4v video files I import into a widescreen (not high def) iMovie HD 6 project. For some reason, a black pillarbox is added to the left of each of these videos. The video is squished slightly horizontally to make room for this unwanted pillar, and no pillar is added to the right side.

Any ideas? (More details on imported files: H.264, AAC)

 

[Zukum]

Thoughts anyone?

Anybody have any thoughts?

 

[neonkru]

Anybody have any thoughts?

i believe that has something to do with the settings for keep the aspect ration using letterbox. check ou these settings on export. also if it doens't solve the problem you can always crop your video in the iMovie =P

 

[mstrze]

Yes, I think there is some radio check box for importing as 16x9 or letterbox of something like that. I had this issue probably 4 or 5 years ago and found that by clicking this off, it worked.

I can't for the life of me tell you where this is and I am not near a Mac at present, but I do recall that it was a choice that felt weird, like it seemed like clicking on the option would preserve the aspect ratio of my video, but in fact it added pillars and squished or stretched my vid instead. Try looking under preferences or see if there is an option in the import menu?