Restream program

[MCD]

I had a question regarding the restream program found in the tools section. I have captured numerous 4:3 flicks from my dv camera and encoded them with tmpg as 4:3. I have been reading about aspect ratios and how to change them. I am going to buy a widescreen tv next week and was wanting to make new copies of the movies I made already. Now I know I can crop and re encode to make the movies wide screen but I just wanted to edit the existing m2v files I already have. That’s were restream came into play. Anyways, I tried it and changed the aspect ratio to 16:9. But when I play it on the computer it looks like all it did was squish everything down. So now I have short fat people. It looks like all the information on the screen is still there so I don’t think there was any cropping of it. So my question is DOES RESTREAM ACTUALLY CHANGE THE ASPECT RATIO OR JUST SQUISH IT ALL TOGETHER TO MAKE IT 16:9???

[FOO]

Restream does nothing to the video . It just instructs the player
to expand the picture to 16:9 instead of 4:3 by changing the
Display Aspect Ratio setting in the video headers.

[MCD]

So if i played it on a widescreen tv do you think it will look right or still be all squished together?

[FOO]

The picture is 4:3
If you lie and tell the player it's 16:9 you will
get short and fat wherever it finally goes

[MCD]

Ok thats kinda what I figured. So my only option is to take my original avi, crop 60 pixls off the top and bottom(thats what i have read anyway) and then re encode using the 16:9 option in tmpg?? I just didnt want to chop off peoples heads or toes. My question now is is 60 pixls right for top and bottom cropping?? I have heard anywhere from 60-64. My goal is to make it play right on the wide screen tv.

[FOO]

4:3 = 16:12
16:9 = 16:9

9/12 * 480 = 360 = 480 - 60 - 60


If it was 720 x 480 before

[MCD]

Well you kinda lost me on that but, yes the size is 720x480 (this is the size I only ever use) So I think what you are telling me is that 60 for top and bottom is right. Please correct me if I am wrong. And I am assuming there is no programs out there that can crop the m2v file??????????