Letterboxing a widescreen 16X9 film + flickering & vertical vectors

Greetings Gentlemen,

I've used these forums in the past, and you have always been so helpful. Although it's been a while and the interface has changed drastically on these forums, for the worse I'm afraid, it's good to be back here learning from the masters.

I'll make these points and queastions direct and with little proxy:

1. My film is in a 1920X1080 timeline. 422 Pro Res. 23.98fps. 16X9. The whole 9. Shot it on a Canon 5D Mark II. I put a widescreen 1.85.1 mask on all of the footage. When I export to quicktime and play the video on my Macbook, it plays with significant letterboxing (which is what I like). I assume it does this because my Macbook monitor is not widescreen.

But, when I use Compressor and burn a H.264 Blu-ray, and play the film on my HD TV: no letterboxing, no mask, nothing. Just boring HD video with no cinematic look. I guess this is because the tv is widescreen like the footage so the footage fits on it.

So the question lies: is there anyway to view my mask or letterbox on a DVD with a widescreen or HD TV? Without losing quality or distorting picture?

I've tried messing with every setting in Compressor, like cropping, panning, letterbox filter. None of it works. Panning seems like it compresses the video. And I can't go as far as using a 2.35.1 mask, because we stupidly ddin't shoot for ithat originally. Anyway, I thought a 1.85 mask would be enough to show on TVs.

Another thing I tried was nesting my 16X9 sequence into a 4X3 sequence. That gave me letterboxing. But then I was stuck in 4:3 when I would try to export -- so I tried changing the sequence to Anamorphic, exporting, still stuck in 4:3. I guess if I could someone change this letterboxed 4:3 sequence back to 16X9, I will have successfully solved the problem. But perhaps I would have lost HD somehwere along the way.

Basically, I want the bars. I want the cinematic look. How do I acheieve it? So much for no proxy, huh?

2. A supplemental question: I've got some vertical vectors in my film, like lines or doorways, bed posts... that flicker on DVD and blu-ray. I've heard using a directional blur works. 2 out of a 100. At 3 effect level, or something. That doesn't seem to fix the problem. Any other way to stop this distortion?

3. And lastly, I've got a couple of outside shots / daylight shots that have a real just general flickering problem. I don't know why. I've tried the flicker filter in FCP, but that doesn't seem to do anything to stop the jarring flickering. Any ideas on how to rid my film of this flickering?

Thank you, in advance, for any solutions or suggestions. I am much oblidged and my skills are humbled in this forum of Final Cut knowledge.

yours truly,

M