Aspect Ratio Question

[kelticvixen]

Hi- I'm fairly new at this so I apologize in advance if this is a super dumb question. I did try to find the answer first by surfing the forum, but could not find my specific question in the bunch of posts that I did go through.

Basically, if the aspect ratio for a movie file is 2.35:1 and your options for burning so you can play in stand alone dvd player are only 4:3 or 16:9 (i.e. I was using DVD Flick) is there some other way to keep your burned copy from looking squished? Since I'm certifiably newbish, I am most certainly missing some important and probably obvious point. But why isn't the option for 2.35:1 included if that is the aspect ratio the movie file is presented in? I noticed that one of my files is 1.85:1 which I think is close to 16:9. But some of my files are 2.35:1 and you definitely see image compression when viewing in a standalone.

Is this something I am supposed to convert when I'm going from avi to mpg? Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

**Edited to clarify that I'm by NO means an expert at DVD Flick either and I have since discovered that there are two places that mention aspect ratio when you are working on your project and choose the option Edit Title. Under General where it presents the two options I reference above as "Target Aspect Ratio". Under Video Sources it has a drop down box for Pixel Aspect Ratio and it has 2.35:1 listed there. But I don't know if that means that you can burn it to play in that ratio or which option points to what your mpeg presents in and which points to the choice that you wish to burn it in.

Sorry so confused!

[manono]

is there some other way to keep your burned copy from looking squished?

It won't look "squished" at playback time. It gets resized at playback time and gets "unsquished". Every DVD you've ever watched has a DAR (Display Aspect Ratio) of either 4:3 or 16:9, even the ones with 2.35:1 movies inside. Let DVD Flick do the thinking for you. Here, read this:

http://www.doom9.org/aspectratios.htm

[kelticvixen]

is there some other way to keep your burned copy from looking squished?

It won't look "squished" at playback time. It gets resized at playback time and gets "unsquished". Every DVD you've ever watched has a DAR (Display Aspect Ratio) of either 4:3 or 16:9, even the ones with 2.35:1 movies inside. Let DVD Flick do the thinking for you. Here, read this:

http://www.doom9.org/aspectratios.htm

Thanks for the fast reply! I'm heading right over to your link. I should have also mentioned that the "squished" copy I refered to was also burned using some other program (Total Video Converter or something) and it really looked odd. I burned it twice- once on 4:3 by accident and then with 16:9 which still looked squished. That is when I looked at the aspect ratio since I had not had that happen with a different mpeg that was in 1.85:1.

I just didn't want to mess up any more roms so thought I'd ask first, even though I just switched to DVD Flick. Anyway, I'm off to check out your link and many thanks! I'll post back if I still can't get it right.

[Krispy Kritter]

Whenever you are experimenting, use RW discs. Then you can simply erase/format the disc and use it again.