Unsqueezing/Stretching Software

[jeliza]

Hey Guys,

 

I am about to shoot some footage on my T3 with my Singer 16d. What do you use to unsqueeze the footage? Premiere Pro? I don't have Final Cut...

 

Also, what's this about using Magic Lantern? What's the advantage?

[Caleb Genheimer]

Most editing software should be able to desqueeze your anamorphic footage. I don't have a Canon camera, but the advantage (specific to anamorphic) of shooting with ML is the aspect ratio features. ML allows you to shoot 4:3 instead of 16:9, which can be helpful in keeping the unsqueezed ratio from being to extreme (with 2X anamorphics on 16:9, you end up with a 3.55:1 ratio image).

[Cosimo murgolo]

ML = raw video, and more and more and more.

a quick search on youtube or internet and you will be bombarded with lots of infos.

Have fun!!!!

Main website http://www.magiclantern.fm/

[jeliza]

Okay,

 

 

So I have shot both video and stills with my Singer 16D lens...would like to know how to unsqueeze footage in After Effects or Premiere Pro??

 

Also for stills, do I change the Pixel Aspect Ratio from Square to Anamorphic in Photoshop? Or should I be changing the image size by a percentage i.e. Multiply the focal length times the anamorphic length and increase the size by that percentage?

 

Help!! :)

[dhessel]

Okay,

 

 

So I have shot both video and stills with my Singer 16D lens...would like to know how to unsqueeze footage in After Effects or Premiere Pro??

 

Also for stills, do I change the Pixel Aspect Ratio from Square to Anamorphic in Photoshop? Or should I be changing the image size by a percentage i.e. Multiply the focal length times the anamorphic length and increase the size by that percentage?

 

Help!! :)

 

I generally change pixel aspect ratio when working with footage and have my final output be square pixels. Not everything handles pixel aspect ratio's properly so I find it is best to get rid of it for anything that I consider a final product. I do find that using pixel aspect ratio's during color correction allows me to keep my full resolution and minimize memory since a 2.0 pixel aspect changes the size of the image and unsqueezes it but doesn't change the number of pixels unlike scaling the footage by 2.

 

For images in photoshop I would scale the image rather than use pixel aspect, I imagine that image viewers would be much more likely to not support pixel aspect ratio's.

 

For AE or Premiere I always have the sequence/comp the exact same height as my raw footage and use pixel aspect ratios to preview the un-squeezed footage. There are par's for 1.33, 1.5, and 2.0 in both apps.  I then set the width of the comp/sequence to have a final aspect of 2.39 or 2.67 (usually 1440 x 1080), and re-frame my footage during edit. A 2x anamorphic shot 16:9 is way too wide and I like to get it back to a standard aspect in the beginning and frame my footage horizontally as I go rather than keeping it ultra wide and re-framing at the end as a whole since I like to have the option to individually frame each shot.

 

Once all editing and CC is done I export out a master in a high quality codec, 10bit black magic at this point since I am on windows and DNxHD doesn't allow resolutions like 1440 x 1080. From there I use my master to make my final square pixel version.

 

As a work around for 2x squeeze with a 1440 x 1080 comp and DNxHD I have found I can set my footage to have a 1.33 aspect ratio and render out 1920 x 1080 as 1440 * 1.333 = 1920. Then when working with the DNxHD files I assign a 1.5 pixel aspect ratio to it. That gives it a 2x final stretch since 1.5 * 1.333 = 2 and still keeps some of the benefits of using pixel aspect instead of scaling.. 

[njthomps65]

dhessel thanks for sharing your method! I'm going to give that a try! Very useful insights.

[Filmed]

It's often a good idea to shoot some footage or stills of a circular shape or object using your setup, this will allow you to stretch footage using your own reference, it also allows you to understand the stretch an give you a guide as to what looks good vs actual required stretch, hope this helps.

[gj91]

If you have files VLC can read that works very well for a quick view to see what you have.

[ToniDove]

Hi - I'm working with magic lantern footage from the 5diii shot with an iscorama. My editing system is a 2009 Mac tower. I'm using FCPX 10.1.2. I'd like to be able to put the viewer window on a second computer monitor and also output hdmi to a 10 bit monitor. I have an intensity pro card. Everything works OK except the output from FCPX to the hdmi monitor bypasses the anamorphic setting so it not unsquished ( a technical term ;)
I can output from DaVinci Resolve lite to the monitor in anamorphic aspect ratio.

I am using transform in FCPX to anamorphically stretch each clip.

Any thoughts on this? I've checked everything I can think of and it's driving me nuts - I would think I could output from whatever was happening in the viewer window.

Thanks - any thoughts appreciated!!
Toni