Changing a 1920x1080 HD Letterboxed video into 720x576 PAL FHA

Hey guys! This is a FCP and After Effects question, so I'm posting it in both. Apologies if this is not the correct thing to do...

I have a project which is 1920x1080, Apple Prores HQ, Square pixels, with letterboxing added. I have been asked to send a version that is 720x576 PAL FHA. Now, I did a search on here and found this thread and tried what it suggested. The only problem is that this suggests using the PAL D1/DV Widescreen preset for an After Effects comp and dropping in the video, scaling it, and rendering. Although this did look okay, it is not the dimensions I need. I need it to be 720x576. I tried changing the comp settings to 720x576 PAL with square pixels but when I tried to resize my video within these dimensions, I either lost quite a bit of frame on either side or had too much empty space above the letterboxes on top and bottom. What is the best way to resolve this? Thanks so much!

jessekirbs

Howdy,

So I put the video into a PAL Widescreen comp so that the whole thing fit, rendered it out using the PAL, 48kh Audio render setting and it came out look just as it should (I believe). Correct size and all. Then I tried rendering one out (same exact comp) using the Lossless setting but it came out with the black bars on either side of the video. Using this method, am I forced to render out using the PAL setting? I feel like I am losing audio quality, which is not great considering it's a music video. Is this just something I'll have to live with considering they're asking for SD over in the UK? Thanks for all the help thus far, guys.