Streamclip MPEG2 Conversion ?

[matthewt24]

Here’s my situation. I own a Sony DCR-SR42 HDD handycam. I have quite a few mpeg2 files saved on my old Dell laptop. They were all shot using 9M (HQ) and 16:9 Wide settings.

Recently converted to an iMac this past fall, and transferred the files to the new machine. My goal is to create a slideshow containing still photos and video clips in iMovie ’09.

I purchased the mpeg2 Quicktime plug-in and downloaded MPEG Streamclip. I’ve transcoded a test file into several different formats; however, they are all either squished or stretched when viewed using QT. The dimensions of the test file are listed as 720x480. Below are the results (compared to the original) using various Export options (and settings) in Streamclip.
- DV (Compression: DV25; Standard: NTSC; Aspect Ratio: 16:9; Interlaced Scaling & Reinterlace Chroma checked by default on all Exports): image slightly stretched wider than original
- Quicktime (Compression: AIC; Quality: 100%; Frame Size: 720x480 DV-NTSC): QT window opens as 4x3, and image appears squished
- Quicktime (Compression: AIC; Quality: 100%; Frame Size: 854x480 16:9): image slightly stretched wider than original (same as DV above)
- Quicktime (Compression: AIC; Quality: 100%; Frame Size: 720x480 Unscaled): QT window opens as 4x3, and image appears squished (same as QT/AIC/DV-NTSC above)
- MPEG-4 (Compression: H.264; Quality: 100%; Frame Size: 720x480 DV-NTSC): QT window opens as 4x3, and image appears squished (same as QT/AIC/DV-NTSC above)

Am I missing an Export setting? Am I doing something incorrectly? How can I convert my mpeg2 files into a format that iMovie is able to import, and retain all the original settings?

Thanks in advance for any help!

 

[KeithPratt]

NTSC video is 720x480 whether it's 4:3 or 16:9, it just uses a Pixel Aspect Ratio to squeeze or stretch it on playout to 640x480 (4:3) or 854x480 (16:9).

Stick with 720x480 (until it's time to output for the web, at which point a square PAR is sensible). In Streamclip you can specify the aspect ratio but I'm not sure whether this ends up as a tag in the transcoded video or not...