Won't preserve aspect ratio letterbox?

You need to convert the material in FCE to 4:3. Place your edited widescreen sequence in a 4:3 sequence. Render it and export to the frame size you want.

Try this. Export using Quicktime conversion.
When the dialog box opens leave format at quicktime and click options.
Open settings and change frame rate to 29.97 then in the data rate box where it says "restrict to" put in 2500 to 3000 hit OK and that brings you back to the movie settings box. Now click size and in the dimensions drop down box choose custom and put in one of the following sizes depending on your preference.
853x480, 800x450, 720x405, 640x360, 600x338, 480x270

Good luck

I'm having the same problem and it's driving me nuts. I have HD footage and I'm trying to save a small sample as a demo. I want to email either a 16:9 clip or a 4:3 letterboxed clip. No matter what dimension I export to, it ends up as 4:3, even when "letterbox" is checked. For example, if I export to 720x480 (4:3), it's squashed. But if I export to 720x480 (16:9), it's squashed AND I have black bars ON THE SIDES! So I'm telling FCE to go from 16:9 to 16:9 and it converts it to 4:3 and then puts black borders on the side? How does this make any sense??

When you say "Place your edited widescreen sequence in a 4:3 sequence" what do you mean? I don't see sequence properties that control the aspect ratio.

Also, what should the compression type be? Like I said, I'm just trying to export a small 30-second demo clip. All of my exports are turning out 40+ MB. If I do a straight Export->Quicktime movie (no conversion) then my 30 second clip is more like 400MB.

HD is widescreen. Why don't you export a file that's in the correct aspect ratio like 640x360 or 480x370 or something smaller.

The aspect ratio of the sequence is created by choosing SD sequence or an SD anamorphic sequence.

There are many times when widescreen output is not appropriate but I want to retain the quality. Clients request different dimensions for web-based projects depending on page layout. Also, some video players seem to have a problem with widescreen - I noticed that until the latest update, Quicktime was seriously munging 16:9 ratios.

FCE seems to have major bugs when it comes to widescreen. It just doesn't make sense. For example, I just export to iPhone instead of going through the QT converison. And the result? Squished with black bars on the right and left sides again rather than letterboxed. I still don't understand why that format would EVER be a good idea. I've never seen a video taller than it is wide.

"The aspect ratio of the sequence is created by choosing SD sequence or an SD anamorphic sequence."

Can you tell me exactly where those options appear? I don't see them anywhere and Help doesn't seem to know where they are either. Thanks.

FCE Sequence settings are selected in Easy Setup.

This is so confusing.

So, I added a new sequence and changed it to SD (non-anamorphic). Then I dragged my HD sequence into the new sequence and rendered it. I exported the result, using custom dimensions and checking "preserve aspect ratio". For the first time since I started this, the output was finally letterboxed. So it would seem to have worked.

However, when I go back and look at the sequences, both sequences are set to HD, specifically "HDV Apple-Intermediate Codec 1080i60", which is what I started with. Every other time I've exported HD footage, the "preserve aspect ratio" flat out doesn't work. It's like FCE has a major bug around trying to letterbox HD footage. Either that or I just don't get it (which is quite likely).

In any case, I have a usable mov file that still has good quality and is letterboxed. I don't know about the guy that actually started this thread, but I'm satisfied. Thanks for all the help.