Authoring captured 16:9 DVD to display correctly

[Richard_G]

I'm in the UK so we are talking PAL here. I have a number of DVD compliant mpeg2 files that have been analogue captured from a digital set top box. The resolution of the files is 720 x 576 as it should be for full D1 but as the source was in 16:9 widescreen, there are black bars top and bottom. I use Ulead DVD Workshop 2 to turn them into a DVD that I can watch on my widescreen TV. This is where I run into a problem. If I use the settings for a 16:9 PAL DVD I get a DVD which plays full screen on the widescreen TV but still has the black bars top and bottom so the actual picture is stretched horizontally. If I use the settings for a 4:3 DVD, the playback is not distorted or stretched either horizontally or vertically but does not fill the screen. I assume that because it is seeing a 4:3 DVD, the TV displays it as it should with black bars on both sides but still treats the black bars at top and bottom as part of the picture. So I end up with a correctly displayed picture that is in the centre of the screen and not filling the screen.

There is obviously something glaringly obvious I'm missing here, but what?

[jagabo]

What you captured is not a 16:9 video. It's a 16:9 picture in a 4:3 display aspect ratio frame. If you want to make that into a 16:9 DVD you need to crop 72 lines off the top, crop 72 lines off the bottom, (a total of 144 lines, it doesn't have to be the same amount top and bottom), resize what's left to 720x576, then make a 16:9 DVD.