I’ll admit- I’ve never used the Edit to Tape feature in FCP. I generally just use the much easier Print to Video. But when you need a bit more control, Edit to Tape is the way to go.

David Battistella has a tutorial on Editing to Tape over at Creative Cow. Read the tutorial here.

Andrew Balis from Moviola Resource Center has a much easier way of exporting a letterboxed 16×9 video, that doesn’t mess with the padding parameters in Compressor.

Read the tutorial here.