how do I add letterboxes

Do you want to Letterbox, which means to keep the original aspect and have the video run at reduced size within that frame - usually with black bars at the top and bottom of the frame - or do you want to actually crop the video so that it has a widescreen aspect ratio, with the video filling that widescreen aspect ratio with no black bars?

Click anywhere on the timeline, and type Command = 0 {zero} to see you sequence properties. Either report those properties here or take a screen shot and post that screen shot here.

MtD

I am not sure I understand your response.

You have a sequence that looks like this:

and you want it to look like this:

MtD

IF your project is 16:9 and you wish to include 4:3 material, do nothing and the 4:3 footage will be "pillarboxed" as long as the aspect ratio has not been altered.

IF your project is 4:3 and you wish to include 16:9 material, you will need to scale down the 16:9 footage to make it fit horizontally. Doing this will create a letterbox as long as the aspect ratio has not been altered.

You can also crop your footage or add top and bottom mattes to create a letterbox, and there is a Letterbox filter included in FCP.

I can't figure out what you want from your explanation, but you may be able to achieve it with mine, Good luck!

Was there an solution to this post? I can not see it.

I have a the same problem. I have a number of iPhone 4 videos that I want to letter/pillarbox when convirted to SD 4x3, but would prefer not to have to reframe them in FCP, but just use compressor 2. I want to batch convert several hundred clips.

If I drop the clips into iDVD, the videos are automatically letter/pillarboxed, so I know QT has the ability.

What settings in Compressor 2 do I use to get the results in the sequence 2 example?

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated?

TIA