Quicktip for MPEG Streamclip - Preparing 4/3 Letterbox Movies from 16/9 clips to use in FCP

This small tutorial explains briefly what to do if you want to export 16/9 (both real and anamorphic) movies to the 4/3 letterbox format.

In fact it is quite the same as my previous tutorial:

1. Open the file in MPEG Streamclip

2. Use the Export To QuickTime Function (File->Export to QuickTime or ⌘+E)

Choose the appropriate codec (I am using Apple DV PAL). When you press the 'Options' button the default setting will be the right one (4:3).

The only thing you need to change is the X/Y aspect ratio. This should be set to 1.333%.


Press the 'Make Movie' button. Choose your desired destination and you will have a 4/3 letterbox movie clip that will look like this.

Quicktip for MPEG Streamclip - Preparing Anamorphic Movies from Letterbox clips to use in FCP

I get a lot of movie clips (mpeg/quicktimes) who are in the 4/3 letterbox format.

I convert them with mpeg streamclip to Quicktime DVPAL Anamorphic because I wan't to have all files in FCP to have the same codec and size.

How to do it?

Well it's very simple:

1. Open the letterbox clip with MPEG Streamclip

2. Export it to QuickTime (File->Export to QuickTime or ⌘+E)

Now choose your wanted compression. In my case that is  Apple DV-PAL.

Then press the 'Options' button (Note- This will depend on the codec you selected) and choose Aspect Ratio 16:9. Then confirm by pressing 'OK' This step isn't necessary, but doing it now will save some time in fcp)

You can leave all other settings as they are by default. The only parameters that are important are Zoom and X/Y.

Zoom has to be set at 133.3% and the X/Y dropbox at ratio 0.75.

That's all. Just press 'Make Movie', select your desired destination and the job will be done.

The result will look like this.

A Dozen Free Mac OSX Applications I Couldn’t Live Without -part 9

Screen Spanning Doctor

Most of you probably know this little application/hack, and for most people it is totally obsolete.

But if you do have an old emac/ibook/imac which doesn't support an extended desktop and you need or want to use multiple monitors this nifty tool is just a lifesaver.

BUT BE AWARE and check if your Mac is supported - if not you risk destroying your video card.

You can find a list of supported machines on the developer's site here.

More info and download are here.

A Dozen Free Mac OSX Applications I Couldn’t Live Without -part 8

Live Mesh from Microsoft

Although not a big Microsoft supporter, I must admit that they do have a decent free online storage service or Online desktop as they call it.

This service -because it is more then just an application- provides you with an online desktop of 5GB and let’s you synchronize certain folders on your Mac with your online desktop.

You can choose if this should happen one-way or bidirectional. Live Mesh is currently in it’s beta phase and supports only Intel Macs running Leopard (OS X 10.5) or Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6)

You have to download the Live Mesh agent which provides you information about which folders are being synched between Mac and Online Desktop and which Users have access to those folders.

You can access your files from any random computer with an internet connection, you can share these files or specific folders with other users.

I use it personally to backup my documents and professionally to share documents with colleagues.

The betaversion vcan be tried and downloaded here.