QuickTime X uses incorrect aspect ratio for camcorder H.264 video

Same camera and same exact issue! This is affecting anything imported and exported out of iMovie. My solution, unfortunately, is to boot into Leopard 10.5.8 on a separate partition; which is similar to to the Vista -> XP conundrum.

I'm also having this exact same problem, Except I tried it on my wife's Macbook with Quickbooks 7 and it also had the same problem.. I can boot my machine into windows and the video looks great. This ***** I just got this camcorder today and really like it. I hope there is a fix for this soon.

Same camcoder, same issue.
Hope they will fix it soon.
If you use Standard Definition, the aspect ratio is right. If you use HD (1080 or 720) aspect ratio is wrong.
The problem is about every Quicktime X - related app: Quick Look, iMovie, and so on. I think there is an "engine" or a codec issue, and probably Quicktime 7 on Snow Leopard uses a different egnine or some different codecs.
This morning's iMovie update didn't fix the problem, and I'm a bit frustrated for that.

Is there away for us to report this to Apple? They might not know its an issue. Even if they do the more people bringing it up the more likely we are to get it resolved!

Hi, I ran into the 'wrong aspect ratio' problem in May when I tried to edit the files from my then brand new HMX-H105. You can read about it here.

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10418009

In short, at that time my files played fine in QT player (7.x) but did not import properly in iMovie (8.0.1 and .2).

I installed Snow Leopard today and was hoping for a solution for iMovie. Instead, I now have the same problem in QT player as well, 😟. At least, this way it is very obvious that there is a problem!

Let's hope for a fix in QT soon. Also, it would be nice to get some kind of feedback from Apple - what is the cause of this problem and are they working on fixing it?

/jonas

I think the problem is wider, because it doesn't affect just Quicktime or iMovie, but everything (except Quicktime 7, that probably uses a different engine). So I hope they will fix it in the next Snow Leopard major update.

Any solution? 10.6.2 didn't solved anything. Has anyone any idea?

Is this still an ongoing issue? I was looking at getting this camera as a gift, but this would make me look elsewhere.

I got one of these cameras for Christmas, and after reading this post I decided to go to my local electronics store and record some test movies.

What I discovered is that the movie files (the .mp4 files) do indeed have the wrong aspect ratio when played in isolation, but if I use iMovie to import the files from the memory card directly the images have the correct aspect ratio. I got this idea from a thread (I can't find it right now) where they mentioned that the AVCHD files are more than the single movie files. There are other meta files in the directory. My guess is that iMovie looks at some the other files to get the correct aspect ratio for importing.

I do believe that this importing does some kind of conversion, but it did seem to work.

I'm curious if others have tried to import the files from the SD card or camera directly?

I do believe that this importing does some kind of conversion, but it did seem to work.


Not really. Movie files can contain three different bits of "size" information --the physical dimensions of the matrix to which the video was encoded, the pixel ratio at which the encoded file should be displayed, and the current actual dimensions at which the movie is set to be displayed during playback. A common example of these different bits of information would be the common DV file compression format. In its simplest form, these files can be said to be encoded using a 720x480 physical data matrix (aspect ratio of 1.5:1) but may be flagged for playback with either an SD 4:3 (usually 640x480) or Widescreen 16:9 (either 853x480 or 640x360 depending on the application) aspect ratio. However, as any QT/QT Pro user knows, the actual playback dimensions can the changed by stretching/shrinking the player window or by entering different dimension/aspect property values. Basically, iMovie '08/'09 ignores the physical encode/dimension settings and uses the pixel aspect setting when it imports files directly from the camcorder. Other applications and/or workflows, however, ignore or even throw away/lose the the aspect ratio information and, as a result default their displays to either the SD 4:3 dimensions or, on more rare occasions, to the matrix encode dimensions depending on the specific application in use. Depending on what you plan to do with the content, you have three basic options at this point -- 1) you can restored the PAR by re-encoding the file to a compression format that automatically restores this setting, 2) re-compress the data manually correcting the display dimensions to values representing the correct aspect ratio, or, 3) in the case of QT Pro, simply change the current physical display dimensions without actually re-compressing the data. This last work flow is fine for some applications but not others. (E.g., they would not work as a quick alternative for restoring the correct aspect ratio for iMovie '08/'09 editing but would work for older versions of iMovie or for display in the QT 7 Player.)

I had many problem reading videos produced by Samsung HMX 105, i got wrong aspect ratio and artefacts. By upgrading ffmpeg to the latest svn version the problem was solved for the software which use ffmpeg such as vlc, xine, mplayer.
Apple should update their imovie and quicktime software as well.
I hope this helps.