Aspect Ratio problem importing from iMovie

Needing to export to DVD, I took (for me) a bold step and bought FCP X last night.

Importing my events and projects from iMovie, I notice they all appear in fcp as 4:3, not the 16:9 they were filmed and worked with in iMovie.

I'm sure there's a simple fix and you've seen this so many times, but I'm pulling my hair out and would appreciate some help please...
As I don't have the originals of some important movies now, I wonder if I've been too reckless and wasted my hard-earned?...

The Inspector allows you to change the aspect ratio of clips and projects easily.

Your original iMovie project should also still be in tact.

I'd recommend Ripple Training for their core FCP X training. FCP X is a whole lot more complex than iMovie. There's lots your going to need to learn, but it's all easy to learn.

FCP X has only the most basic DVD authoring abilities. Did you ever use iDVD before?

Thanks, BenB!
I'll investigate the Inspector more closely...
Yes, the originals are intact, I was worried I might not be able to use them though.
I'll give Ripple a look too.
I'm worried about the authoring now. I was hoping to be able to export as well as Pinnacle which I've used a bit (a while ago), but, alas, not iDVD.
Thanks again for your prompt reply!

g.

How do you change aspect ratio of clips in FCP? There is not a single PAR control anywhere in the application that I can find. Anamorphic media captured in other applications or legacy versions of FCP do not import correctly. There is no PAR setting anywhere in the inspector, and the only solution I can find it to manually distort the clip in the timeline, which is about the most god-awful solution possible.

And I thought it was just me being thick, Tom! :lol:

The only movie I can get to display in widescreen is the one I imported from the camera.

Help please!...

Yes, I am not aware of any way to change the pixel aspect of clips once imported into fcpx. There are workarounds to accomplish this before importing. See links below:


alex4d.wordpress.com/2012/03/21/setting-_qt_aspect_ratio_flags/

discussions.apple.com/thread/3830287?start=0&tstart=0

Well, I'll try this again because everything I typed disappeared

I cannot see how it is possible to change the pixel aspect of clips in fcpx once imported by using the inspector or any other fcpx command. Here is a workaround by changing your clip before you import it into fcpx. QT7 also works well to do this.

alex4d.wordpress.com/2012/03/21/setting-_qt_aspect_ratio_flags/

Aspect ratio, not frame size, brain fart.

Thanks, dgwvideo!
Having other commitments preventing me from returning, I notice today the links you previously tried to post are now there!
I had wondered if the problem was a "stretching" issue, so I'll bookmark your links and work on it!
Thanks again!