iMovie forcing pillarboxing on 16:9 video clip

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Level 1

9 points

iMovie forcing pillarboxing on 16:9 video clip

I have a DV Widescreen (16:9 aspect ratio) project and I am trying to import a 16:9 aspect ration video clip that I made in some animation software. I have "Automatic DV Pillarboxing and Letterboxing" deselected in iMovie's preferences, BUT everytime I import the 16:9 video into iMovie, iMovie insists on squishing it horizontally and adding pillarboxing to the sides of the video clip so that the video is distorted and useless.
How can I fix this?

iMac, Mac OS X (10.5.5), iPod Touch

Posted on Feb 24, 2010 4:36 AM

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Answer 1

Feb 24, 2010 10:36 AM in response to fladnag

Hi,
When you create your project before you import your video, in the create new project window, have you clicked on the small triangle that reveals video format and selected DV Widescreen?.
DM

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Answer 2

Feb 24, 2010 10:49 AM in response to fladnag

trying to import a 16:9 aspect ration video clip that I made in some animation software

Open it with QT Player Pro or MPEG Streamclip and export it as 16:9 flagged .dv file. Then the .dv file should import OK to a 16:9 iMovie project.

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Answer 3

fladnag Author

Level 1

9 points

Feb 24, 2010 2:48 PM in response to Matti Haveri

That worked, thanks. MPEG Streamclip has saved the day for me a few times in the past when Apple products weren't cutting it so I am glad it's out there.
iMovie was jealous at first and wasn't playing nice with the clips - when I added transitions, iMovie was cutting parts of the different clips in here and there where I hadn't edited. The solution was deleting the transitions I had added, quitting iMovie and starting it again then adding the clips again after the restart.
Anyway, thanks for the tip Matti!

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