Hey all - good to be here!

I'm editing 16:9 HD video on the Mac in Final Cut Express HD, and I have a problem exporting to letterboxed 4:3.

I'm outputting to file for devices with 4:3 screens such as iPods and mobile phones, so I really need to be able to letterbox my 16:9 footage. There doesn't seem to be an option for this, and the only 4:3 files I can output end up squashing the video.

Any ideas?

I'm not familiar with Final Cut, but I'm sure there's an output option. However a work around that may work is to export your 16:9 video and then import into a 4:3 project. This should letter box your video, which you can then output. If it doesn't letterbox, simply resize the video in the new project so that it conforms to letterbox.

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That's the problem - Final Cut Express HD doesn't seem to deal with 4:3 at all - there's no option to create a 4:3 project. It seems solely to deal with 16:9 with no thought for backward compatibility.

I hope I'm wrong though.