DVDSP 16:9 assets?

[820am]

I thought I'd read somewhere--long time ago--that DVDSP could take oddly shaped 16:9 assets. I have a letterboxed, 4:3 video I'd like to turn into a 16:9 DVD. I just can't figure out what the right aspect ratio would be....

Any help would be great.

TIA

[terryj]

from Martin Sitter's DVDSP3 book:
page 523-525
"Most DVD-Authors make the mistake of letterboxing their
video BEFOE ingesting into DVDSP. DO NOT letterbox your
video in FCP or any other editing app, unless you are
aiming for a letterboxed look for video content
that is not widescreen.

If the DVD Player encounters a 16:9 LBX stream flag,
the player will letterbox your video automatically when played back on a 4:3 tv.

Thus, you must prepare your video for 16:9 if you are choosing to do a 16:9 widescreen look, without letterboxing
the video outside of DVDSP3.

To set a 16:9 track's display mode:

Once you have create the necessary 16:9 MPEG-2 track,
then it is time to set the Display Mode for the video
to be played back on the final DVD. By defualt,
DVDSP3 sets all video tracks to 4:3. You
will however have a 16:9 video track that will be flagged
as 16:9; now you just need to set the display mode
so that the final DVD will have an instruction
on how to display it.

1. In DVDSP3, select Outline view.
2. Select the track that contains the 4:3 track
3. Click the track inspector, and in the General tab,
set the display mode for the track:
16:9 Pan Scan
16:9 Letterbox
16:9 Pan and Scan Letterbox"

[820am]

For now, I'm using Apple's MPEG-2 encoder, so my video is 720 x 480, but my original QT file is, currently, 720 x 360 (from a 16:9 640x360).

Does DVDSP take anything other than X by 480? And not 352 x 240....

[terryj]

yeesh...
You could try it, but AFAIK, and this is only related
to what I have personally worked on,
you either ingest 854 x 480 (16:9) with target output of
720 x 480 (4:3) flagged though to display at 16:9.
or input 720 x 480 (4:3), flagged 4;3 but set to
letterbox in DVDSP3.

[dib1066]

I'm a little confused about the aspect ratio. I'm encoding .avi to mpeg2enc via ffmegx and on some of the transfers once I burn them I have most of the screen covered by letterbox. I generally leave the video parameters as 720 X 480 and autosize as dvd. I uncheck the letterbox option on the options tab. Yet I still get transfers that have excessive amounts of black once I view it on the tv. It looks fine on the computer via qt