dv aspect ratio problem

[tecstar]

i have some footage on my camcorder.
i am capturing via f/w using VS8.
The footage is "widescreen" but is being captured as 4:3 dv.
If i capture as mpeg-2 i can set it to capture as 16:9 and all is ok, but obviously editing and capturing on the fly has its issues, so i am looking for a way to do one of the following:

force capture of the dv footage as 16:9
convert the captured dv footage to 16:9
edit the footage then convert it to 16:9 (currently, if i burn it as a 16:9 dvd, then the squashed 4:3 picture sits in the middle of 2 black bands!)
TIA

[tecstar]

I may have found a solution, and I am surprised at the source.
I thought I would check out Windows Movie Maker and low and behold, it allows me to set the import ratio to 16:9 and then capture dv.
I can then drag it to the timeline, then export the footage unedited as 16:9 to a second dv file. The original and output dv specs are the same, and I guess there is no loss as there is no compression/conversion taking place.
I can then import the second file into vs8, edit, export it as an mpeg2 file, then burn as a dvd.
It seems to work Ok with the quick test with 30 seconds of footage I have done.

Any suspected issues with this and any other suggestions welcomed!

[guns1inger]

You could also look at WinDV and DVIO as alternate DV transfer programs.

[jtoolman2000]

My Camera has a sort of 16:9 shooting mode but it simply is a cropped image It adds a black band on top an bottom. You compose the shots as is it was "Real" wide screen. When I capture that sort of shot, I have to capture as 4:3 and not as 16:9 otherwize it will squash it even more. When played it will then look as it originally appeared in camara's the viewfinder. If your cam indeed shoots in real 16:9 then that's a diferent situation.

[tecstar]

thanks guns1inger, but i tried those already and couldnt get them to do what i want.
WMM lets you force the capture to be 16:9, and i couldnt find any other software that would let me do this.
i am right in saying that the dv stream will remain unchanged arent i?

[tecstar]

Ok, let me just correct my last post.
WMM will not force the capture in 16:9, but will export to DV at 16:9.
Where it differs from other programs is that they will export at 16:9 but put the squashed 4:3 picture in the center of a 16:9 picture with black bands either side. WMM actually resizes the 4:3 picture to 16:9 so it fills the whole 16:9 picture and therefore correcting the squashing effect.
Hope this is clear to anyone else interested.