Making a 4:3 VCD from a ripped 16:9 DVD???

This seems like a common question to me, but I couldn't find anything definitive about it in the forums. So here goes...

When I rip a DVD that is in widescreen format 16:9, I want to convert or clip it to be 4:3 on the VCD, because my TV does not support 16:9. I would much rather use my whole TV screen for the movie, or at least 3/4 of it. With 16:9, I am only using half the screen.

So what is the best way to go about this. I imagine that I will have to clip both the top/bottom and the sides so that I don't get eggheads. But from those of you who have done this, what is the best way?

[Truman]

The best way is to get a 16:9 TV No, although I never will understand it (you will loose a whole lot of the image) , there is an easy way to resize. If you use TMPG, just select video arrange method "no margin".
If you have a 1:2,35 widescreen movie (16:9 coded), you may want to crop these borders (TMPG>advanced> clip frame), then you have to use "center[custom size]". Use FitCD to calculate that "custom size".
Curious how it looks when you crop that much?
http://www.doom9.org/aspectratios.htm
Scroll down to pan&scan.

[dphirschler]

Crop it in TMPGenc. I like to crop, say, about 50-60 pixels off the left and right. That still leaves a little black border at the top and bottom, but very slight. So it looks almost full screen, but a little letterboxed. It's the best of both worlds! It looks similar to what CMT does sometimes during their broadcasts.


Darryl