Aspect Ratio issue in Avid

[Q-Panic]

Hi there...

I am cutting a short film shot on RED. I received a G-Raid with all the footage already ingested into Media Composer. All meta data seems to be there and the DNx36 clips look really beautiful in Avid. Performance is amazing even on my older MacBookPro. Very happy.

However, I noticed the the aspect ratio looks off. It seems like the image is slightly squeezed so people look all tall and skinny. I don't know what program the person who converted/imported the footage to mxf used and I don't know what version of the RED cam they used for the shooting.

I'm not 100% sure but earlier version of the RED didn't shoot 16x9, but a more "square" format. This would explain that my 1920x1080 footage in Avid no looks squeezed.

I'd like to make up for it when I export a quicktime or make a DVD since a wrong aspect ratio is annoying and looks unprofessional. What is the best way to do that correctly?

Right now, the only way I came up with is to nest the sequence and put a resize effect on it and simply play with it until it looks right... is there a better way?

Also, what is the best way to do the online? Going to an Avid DS I'd be able to simply bring in my offline sequence, right? When the footage relinks to the 2k masters, the aspect ratio effect should disappear, right?

If I want to use Avid Nitris as a finishing platform, I have to use EDLs, right? Will my resize effect carry over?

Thanks for your help.

Best,
Carsten

[MichaelP]

Perhaps it was shot 2:1 and was not transcoded to "fit width" which would cause objects to look taller/thinner than usual.

Doing a DS conform will go back to the original R3D so as long as the aspect ratio is correctly set in DS, you are fine. You will be using AAF, so most effects (if not all) will carry over. See step by step guide on Avid.com/red for the DS section.

Michael