Working with 16x9 in Avid
With the introduction of those new fancy cameras that shoot true 16x9, I am often confronted with the challenge of explaining how to format the video properly for Avid Xpress or Media Composer.
Here is what an example of a true 16x9 video source clip will look like on a 4:3 screen. Notice it is stretched.
Therefore, I have written the following tutorial that shows you how to make your 16:9 material look correct when viewed on a standard NTSC 4:3 television screen.
The first question you may have is where do you find the 16x9 option in Avid Xpress Pro? Well…. It is hidden. Here is what you need to do:
Make sure the Composer window is active, and then navigate to the clip menu. There it is! The 16x9 option. This option will not appear if the Composer window is not active. This will definitely confuse most people trying to find the menu item.
So, step 1 is to enable the 16x9 monitors so you can edit your entire show, without have to look at everything stretched out.
Notice how the Composer window is now properly formatted for 16:9 viewing.
Step 2, is to edit your entire show until you are ready to output. Now, here is the strange part. Make sure the composer window is active, and turn off the 16x9 option so your video becomes distorted again. You will see why we are doing this shortly.
Next, add an additional video track to your sequence. If you have multiple layers of video, simply add one more. This is done by navigating to the clip menu and selecting (new video track).
Then, park the blue position indicator at the front of your sequence. Turn on the V2 indicator. Next, press the (add-edit) button. This is a little strange, but it will add a an edit point at the very first frame of the sequence. *You will not be able to see the actual edit point, but trust me, it is there.
This step unlocks the empty V2 track so you can apply an effect to it. Without the (add-edit) the track will not allow you to apply any effects to it. Go to the Avid effects palette and drop the (resize effect) onto V2.
Now, you can apply a resize effect to V2. This effect will ripple through all of your edits within your entire timeline. This means your entire edited show will now be resized. This is a huge time saving feature!
After you drop the effect onto your top-most video layer, click on the effects editor button. The effects editor button is located in the upper left portion of the timeline window. It looks like a pair of seatbelts. The effects editor window will then appear.
Within the effects editor window, change the height to exactly 75%. This is will squish the video image back down to a 16x9 format. You now have a true 16x9 image within a 4:3 aspect ratio!
The great thing about using this method, is that your entire show will now be formatted properly. Avid Xpress DV and Avid Xpress Pro will both play this effect in real-time. Unfortunately, if you do not have the optional Mojo box, you will need to render the effect before you output.
When rendering, you only need to render the resize effect. Don't waste your time rendering any effects below it, because they will be embedded within the resized render file or in Avid lingo (the pre-compute).
