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Make anamorphic DVDs with iDVD5 and Final Cut source Apps
If you've ever tried to get iDVD 5 to burn an anamorphic DVD from a widescreen source other than iMovieHD, you know it doesn't work. If you import the movie into iDVD, the app will treat it as a 4:3 movie instead of a 16:9, meaning your beautiful aspect ratio will be turned into a tall, skinny mess on most consumer DVD players.

iDVD 5 supports anamorphic material when it comes from iMovie HD, however if you try and import a Final Cut movie into iMovie before sending it to iDVD, you'll find the same problem: namely that iMovie now thinks your source is 4:3. Some people have suggested fairly long and complicated solutions to this problem involving editing the MPEG2 stream encoded on the DVD image, and reburning your disk. This, it goes without saying, is a royal pain in the booty.

I've found a fairly simple work-around for the problem: the basic idea is to trick iMovie HD into thinking it has already encoded your source, and then feed your iMovie project to iDVD. The result works beautifully. Here's what you do:
  1. Export your 16:9 anamorphic DV movie in Final Cut as a QuickTime movie using the DV 48KHz Anamorphic setting (PAL or NTSC depending on where you live). Export no markers and make sure that "Make movie self-contained" is unchecked.
  2. Launch iMovie HD and create a New "DV Widescreen" project. Name it whatever you want your DVD to be named. Quit iMovie HD.
  3. Find your iMovie project, Control-click it and select Show Package Contents from the pop-up menu. Open the Media folder and drag your Final Cut movie into there. Close the Finder window.
  4. Double-click your iMovie project to relaunch iMovie HD. When prompted, agree to view trash contents.
  5. Drag your Final Cut movie out of the trash and into your media tray. Close the trash. Drag your Final Cut movie to the timeline.
  6. Click the iDVD button and add chapters if needed (chapters added as markers in Final Cut don't work and shouldn't be exported with your movie). Continue to iDVD and build your DVD.
That should do it! Good luck and happy movie watching.
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Make anamorphic DVDs with iDVD5 and Final Cut source | 4 comments | Create New Account
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Make anamorphic DVDs with iDVD5 and Final Cut source
Authored by: leebennett on May 05, '05 10:44:38AM

Have you actually burned and viewed a DVD after performing these steps? The MPEG stream editing you may have seen is a fix for a problem that occurs in iDVD, not iMovie. I can get 16:9 content into iDVD 5 just fine, and iDVD previews it properly. The problem is that when you burn it, it's still goobered into 4:3 dimensions. The reason is that iDVD 5 seems to have a bug that one tiny little binary bit is enabled which is the flag to "Prohibit widescreen or letterbox mode" and it doesn't matter whether you actually burn a DVD or save a DVD Image.

More information is here.



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Make anamorphic DVDs with iDVD5 and Final Cut source
Authored by: gentryunderwood on May 06, '05 01:56:30PM

yes -- i have tried it on both the internal apple DVD player and an external sony DVD player. both work great!

as far as I know this is the only way around the anamorphic problem on stand-alone DVD players without having to hack the hex code on the disk image.



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Make anamorphic DVDs with iDVD5 and Final Cut source
Authored by: chabig on May 05, '05 01:09:26PM
It's much easier to just drag your movie onto Anamorphicizer and let it do the work for you. Chris

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Make anamorphic DVDs with iDVD5 and Final Cut source
Authored by: gentryunderwood on May 06, '05 02:00:01PM
Chris, have you tried your discs on external players? My understanding (e.g. here) is that the anamorphiciser will only get you part of the way there... -gentry

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