Aspect Ratios: Converting 2.35:1 in MPEG Streamclip

[sarken.livejournal.com]

I've probably scared off more than a few people with the subject -- really, who wants to talk about aspect ratios? -- but I'm in a bit of a quandary. There's lots of discussion about converting 4:3 to 16:9 (or vice versa), but what about 2.35:1 and 16:9?

I'm on a Mac, so I'm using MPEG Streamclip to convert my VOB files. The majority of my footage is 16:9, but I have four clips that are 2.35:1. Ideally, I'd like to convert those to 16:9, but I can't even begin to guess at the the settings. Does anyone know how to convert from 2.35:1 to 16:9?

If there's no way to do this with MPEG Streamclip, my other idea is to scale the 2.23:1 footage up in Final Cut Express, so that those annoying black bars effectively disappear. I think that would work, but I'm not completely certain.

If you could offer some insight, I'd be very much in your debt. Thank you!

Comments

[pwolf.livejournal.com]

to convert 2.35:1 to 16:9 you'd have to cut off the left and right sides (and probably do some resizing to makes the frame sizes match). here's some info based on a frame width of 640 and both sources aren't letterboxed.


a = 16:9 - 640x360
b = 2.35:1 - 640x272

resize b to 848x360 and crop left and right sides by 104.

[sarken.livejournal.com]

Ahh, okay -- that makes sense. Thank you!

[pwolf.livejournal.com]

if i could remember Final Cuts interface i could help you better, but it's been about a year since i last used it.

[morgandawn.livejournal.com]

I think I exported it as regular 16:9 widescreen, then scaled it inside FCP to 113% or so (Using Motion). This gave me the ability to select whether I wanted to move the image right or left (since I was cutting off the sides and I wanted to center it as best as possible depending on what was in the frame).

I am linking to this in the mac-vidding_101 LJ since it is a Mac question.

[sarken.livejournal.com]

Oooh, yeah. You're right -- the ability to move the clips is useful. I think I'm going to definitely leave the cropping and resizing until I start editing. Thank you!