"letterbox" vs. "fit to dimensions"

Question

"letterbox" vs. "fit to dimensions"

can someone explain the differences between these two options? I've found that "letterbox" makes my movie (imported as 1080i) look horribly interlaced, however, "fit to dimensions" results in a product with identical pixel dimensions but NOT degraded by interlacing. I've always used letterboxing, but now I've discovered "fit to dimensions" is better. Or is it? I suppose time and trial/error will be one way to find out, but I'm hoping someone can save me some time and add to my general knowledge. Cheers, and thanks in advance for your thoughts.

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.4.11)

Posted on Jun 25, 2008 6:53 AM

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Answer 1

Jon Walker

Level 6

19,489 points

Jun 25, 2008 8:52 AM in response to light painting

"letterbox" vs. "fit to dimensions"... can someone explain the differences between these two options?

Your actual options are "Fit" and "Crop." Fit places content in the project selected aspect display so that the content is completely contained within the display area. When the content and project have different aspect ratios you end up with a letterboxing or pillaring effect. For instance, if you place 16:9 or 3:2 content in a 4:3 (or 16:9 content into a 3:2) project, then you end up with a "letterboxed" project. If, on the other hand, you put a 4:3 or 3:2 content in a 16:9 (or 4:3 in a 3:2) project, then you end up with a "pillared" project. Cropping content allows the user to select a portion of the content at the project's aspect ratio and enlarge it to fill the entire project display area.

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Answer 2

Jun 25, 2008 7:17 PM in response to Jon Walker

In iMovie HD, the "Export Size Settings" window has three dropdown menu options:
Crop
Letterbox
Fit within dimensions

I guess what I'm asking is how the program treats the last two options differently. There is an obvious difference in the image quality. Movies processed with the "Letterbox" option, when played in Quicktime, have letterbox bars whereas the "Fit within dimensions" looks otherwise identical.

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Answer 3

Jon Walker

Level 6

19,489 points

Jun 26, 2008 3:22 AM in response to light painting

In iMovie HD, the "Export Size Settings" window has three dropdown menu options:

This is the iMovie '08 forum. You might get quicker, better answers posting to one of the iMovie HD forums.

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