0 comments
21st Feb 10
Rodney
QuickTime – Changing How QuickTime Displays Anamorphic Video
If your anamorphic videos look stretched, you need to read this.
In Quicktime Pro
What anamorphic video does is change the shape of the pixels so that, rather than displaying an image as 4:3, it displays it as 16:9.
Something nobody talks about is that anamorphic video has EXACTLY the same number of pixels as regular video — its just that the pixels have different shapes.
Because of this, sometimes when you export a video from Final Cut, then play it in QuickTime it looks stretched or squished. That’s because QuickTime isn’t sure what aspect ratio your pixels are in, so it displays your video using square pixels.
To reset how QuickTime displays your video:
Open the clip in QuickTime Pro (you need the Pro version to do this)
Type Command+J (or go to Window > Show Movie Properties)
Select the Video track near the top of the window.
Click the Visual Settings tab.
UNcheck Preserve Aspect Ratio
Then, depending upon what video format you are using, enter one of these sets of numbers for Scaled Size:
DV NTSC or PAL 16:9 — 720 x 405
720p HD — 1280 x 720
1080i HD — 1920 x 1080
This will make everything look great again.
Courtesy of Larry Jordan
