Correct Aspect Ratios On An Already Authored DVD

[Tony_Montana]

Recently I lost my original dvd of the Spy Game movie.However I had backed up it in xvid format full Quality so as to play it in my laptop that does not have a dvd-rom.So I decided to author a dvd from my Spy Game xvid file.First of all I extracted the audio out of the avi file.It was an ac3 stream.The resolution of the xvid file was 576X304 @ 25fps.I resized it (using virtual dub) into 720X380 and added letterbox so as not to lose its aspect ratio and meet the pal standard 720X576. I encoded it as DV video with mainconcept's dv codec.I ticked the 16:9 option in encoders settings.Then I converted the dv to mpeg 2 dvd pal with CCE SP also using the 16:9 option.Then I authored the dvd on Ulead DVD Workshop 2 with subtitles etc..etc..etc..When I play the DVD on Power DVD the aspect ratio is incorrect.It is shrinked and I have to untick the "Keep Aspect Ratio" option so as to play with the correct aspect ratio.I tried correcting the ifo's using IFOedit and a guide i found here on videohelp.No use however.Nothing changed.Then I used DVDPatcher end patched the vob files without reauthoring the dvd.But the dvd was not corrected.I hope you can help me fellas.I really can't understand what's wrong.Hope to hearing from you guys...Thanks in advance

[guns1inger]

Your problem is that you didn't take into account the fact that pixels are not square on televisions. They are rectangular, and the pixel aspect ratio changes not just between formats (PAL/NTSC), but also between aspect ratios (4:3/16:9). You also didn't compensate for the stretch required in the 16:9 format. Because of this, your image is distorted before you begin, so changing the aspect ratio in the ifo files can't correct it. Try resizing to 720 x 560 (with 720 x 576 borders) and encoding and authoring as 16:9. I suspect you will have more success.

There are a couple of tools to calculate the correct resize values. I have one in my sig that I wrote, FitCD is also good as it creates a basic avisynth file for resizing with borders (very handy for anime fansubbed video) and there are other in the tools list as well.