A Question about aspect Ratio.

[JustSomeGuy]

I have a divx file I'm converting to mpg to burn onto a DVD.

The video is 720 x 288 (x:y)
When played as a divx file has the proper aspect ratio.
ie its very wide. I'm not sure if its 16:9 or 2.21:1.

So.. I converted it to MPEG with Mainconcept's mpeg encoder.
(Set to produce DVD)
After the conversion was complete the image looked very square
(more like 4:3) than the original wide screen divx avi file.

What did I do wrong?
I see in the Mainconcept's advance settings a setting for aspect ratio,
but the only options available are 16:9 or 4:3. 2.21:1 was not selectable.
When I measure the video on my monitor (as rendered by nero showtime)
the video is about 19.6x X 8.3y. For an aspect ratio of about 2.21:1
So why can't I produce a 2.21:1 mpeg with Mainconcept?

[petesimon]

These are guesstimates...because I am not familiar with Mainconcept, but I am familiar with DVD aspect ratios and TMPGenc.

Did you do this...?
You can try to resize the 720x288 to 720x480 and apply a wide-screen aspect ratio like 2.21:1 whilst encoding to MPEG-2. So the actual number of pixels in the video will be 720x480 but the applied aspect ratio will change the effective size during playback.

If only the height changes during playback: 720x326 = 2.21:1

If only the width changes during playback: 1060x480 = 2.21:1

Aspect ratios info:
http://www.dvddemystified.com
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=202215&highlight=dvd+aspect+ratio
http://mornmist.2y.net/~blibbler/tutorial/other/aspect.html
http://www.mir.com/DMG/aspect.html
http://www.widescreen.org/aspect_ratios.shtml
...there are more results on Google.com...

Well, that's all the rambling babbel I can write now...

[reboot]

In Mainconcept, open your avi.
Select DVD for output.
Click the DETAILS button.
Click CROP & SCALE
Set the height and width.
In your case, a 16:9 original should have an output of 720 x 480.
If you find that those settings are making it look like 4:3, then cut the height down to 360. This should give you an output that's the same aspect as the input, and still be DVD compliant.