.avi to DVD 16:9 help

[Ubik]

I have an .avi taken from an HD source with a 16:9 aspect ratio.
I have a regular 4:3 TV with a DVD player.
I've tried numerous settings on ffmegX and Toast but can't seem to create a DVD from this .avi that will play in 16:9 on the DVD player (i.e. with black bars on top and bottom).
Everything plays in "full screen" mode!

Any advice on how I could remedy this would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Ubik

[mwest]

Ubik,

When you drag your AVI file into the program, some settings are set automatically. You may want to check them to make sure they are what you want. Try this and see if it works... It's the process I use for the exact same reason. Now if you have a 4:3 HDTV, you might want to try a different method.

Pick an encoder, I usually stick with mpeg2enc, but ffmpeg should work too. So DVD's are usually set to the default 720x480, that usually works fine for me. Since you are watching it on a 4:3, make sure the autosize window says DVD not DVD 16:9.

Go to the options tab, and make sure that Letterbox is checked, this will give you the borders on the top and bottom to keep the "widescreen" aspect on a 4:3 TV.

Give it a whirl and let us know if it works.

Matthew

[Ubik]

Matthew,

Thanks! Worked like a charm.
Another thing I did was burn the DVD files in Toast as data... rather than video.
Don't know if that made a difference.
But it works now!

Cheers,

Ubik

[mwest]

Ahhh. Yes. Burning it in Toast as data is the way to go. Just make sure that you use the "DVD-UDF" format for the data, and drag the VIDEO/AUDIO_TS folders in and you are ready to go!

Matthew

[synchro505]

This works like a charm! Thank you for sharing the technique. I am no longer tethered to my computer to watch my sci-fi files.

[jasenko]

I had similar problem. My problem was that, when I was encoding avi to DVD 16:9, the video was properly encoded but when authored as a DVD, it doesn't send a proper switch to widescreen mode while playing, so I have to swith my widescreen TV manually.
The workaround I found was to use MyDVDEdit, and edit .ifo file with the correct 16:9 setting and burn the DVD again. It would be nice if ffmpegx could do this for me.

[Traumamc]

Matt I am having a weird problem when I try your method. The file is an .avi and the sound is an AC3 file. I used your method and switched the audio to mp3. But when it encodes, the video encodes perfectly but the sound appears in a separate .wmv file and there is no sound with the video.

Thanks for your help.

Jonathan

[mwest]

Hmmmm... That's sorta weird. Could you post the types of source files and the one's you end up with (name and size)?

Thanks,

Matthew