I'm doing a small commercial that will air at movie theatres before the movies start. Their specifications for submission state they want a "720 x 480 Widescreen Quicktime".  This baffled me, since 720x480 is NON widescreen. They are clear they do not want a letterboxed video (which was my first thought). Should I just do this with Sorensen Squeeze? Or what is the best way to fulfill this weird request?

Exporting a QT with Avid DV codec and widescreen checked as ratio will give you a widescreen QT.

Now if this is a real widescreen, this is another story.

I have tested this and it works.

I will try this. Thanks for the suggestion.

Here's the copy from their website:

Ad size should be set up as 720 x 480 widescreen, in a 16:9 aspect ratio. If you supply a 4:3 ad spot it will run with black space on both sides; we will not scale up the image and crop it on the top and bottom. The final project can be supplied on a Beta SP tape or as an uncompressed QuickTime movie on a data DVD. Please do not author the DVD, since capturing it will result in quality loss.

I find the specs to be weird. But, I guess all I can do is comply.

Seems to me they want a 16:9 Full Height Anamorphic master (pictures are vertically stretched by 1/3, which is corrected when the intermediate is made presumably).

So if your source is all 4:3, right click in your sequence monitor and select 16:9 video.

Add a new video track on top and add a reformat effect - use this effect to pan and scan.

Source:4:3 destination 16:9 (hint: action|subdivide effect is your friend here)

It is not weird at all. It is about pixel aspect ratio! SD is SD is SD, and SD-NTSC has a resolution of 720 by 480 pixels in the digital world, doesn't matter if it's 4:3 or 16:9: a SD-NTSC-TV can not show more than 480 lines.

sverkalo:

Now if this is a real widescreen, this is another story.

This is the point. What is "real widescreen"? In my opinion, "real" widescreen is not possible in SD. You will always 'just' have anamorphotic 4:3 at an resolution of 720:480 (NTSC) or 720:576 (PAL).

@Atomike: if you have Photoshop play around with the various video presets and watch the pixel aspect ratio change between NTSC and NTSC Widescreen, you will see the difference. Sorry that I can not explain it better right now, but it's closing time in my place of the world.

Atomike:

Their specifications for submission state they want a "720 x 480 Widescreen Quicktime".

What they want is a SD-resolution 16:9 movie.

1. have you shot your footage in 16:9?

2. right-click in your record monitor in Avid MC and choose "16:9 monitor"

(2b. if you shot in 4:3 take a look at the "Pan & Scan" effect found in the "Reformat" section!)

3. when exporting your QT, make sure that the QT codec says NONE since 

Atomike:

The final project can be supplied on a Beta SP tape or as an uncompressed QuickTime movie on a data DVD.

and make sure that "Use Avid DV codec" is disabled! Also make sure that you choose 16:9 as aspect ratio in the main export window, not in the QT encoder settings. You should do a test export. As far as I remember, if you tell QT and MC to go for 16:9 you will get a 16:9 file (1024x576 [PAL] square pixels + letterboxed = people are to fat). 

4. open the file in QT and hit CTRL+I. Your file should look like 16:9 does, no black bars on the top or the bottom but widescreen. The "Movie inspector" (the tool wich openend when hitting CTRL+I) should state something like (?, I am not in front of an english version of QT) "normal size: 872x486*".

If that is the case, everything is fine.

Regards, g_f

*that's the size Photoshop tells me for "NTSC Widescreen square pixel".

Wow - these reponses were incredibly helpful - now I actually know what to do. You guys are awesome. I appreciate the depth of knowlege expressed here.

You are welcome! And don't be afraid to ask again if anything goes wrong with your export in this project. Aspect ratios can be really confusing, but once you understand what it is all about it is not so complicated, right?

Regards, g_f