DVD-Labs, aspect ratio and menu button

[Janssen]

My DVD seems to play fine on 16:9 TVs (correct widescreen), but on 4:3 TVs, it refuses to letterbox and maintain widescreen. Instead, it pans&scans (meaning 4:3 full screen). I've told DVD-Labs to use letterbox in settings, but no changes. I've specified widescreen in VTS properties, no changes. Is there a setting or a version of the program (i use 2.28) that will properly tell the DVD to letterbox?

Or is there something i can do with IFOEdit/VOBEdit? Doesn't seem like an encode problem. More like a setting problem.

I've used other authoring programs and it did letterbox correctly when played on the DVD.

Also, no matter what i do, the menu button does not work. Firstplay & title button work, but not menu. When i press it, it sends to an internal chapter selection menu (of the DVD player) instead of mine. I use a VTS menu, not a VGM. I also played with the settings, connected each clip manually to the menu per say in "connections", but no avail.

[DB83]

Go to Project/ Project properties and check the two Widescreen Display settings in the lower panel.

Did you select a simple project or an advanced project ?. How many title sets do you have ?

[Janssen]

Normal. 1 VTS with 12 clips. No VGM menu. One menu in VTS 1. Simple DVD, nothing complex at all, just my clips in one single VTS and one motion menu that links to chapters.

Project properties: NTSC, Full D1, Widescreen, letterbox, letterbox.
VTS properties: Widescreen, NTSC.

Interestingly, in project panel under "commands", there are first play and title menu buttons but not specificially a plain menu button. Maybe i need to add some kind of command so that it creates one.

[manono]

Or is there something i can do with IFOEdit/VOBEdit?

You'll want to use PGCEdit.

Open the DVD in PGCEdit. Right-click on the video in question and hit 'Domain Streams Attributes'. In the new 'Streams Attributes' screen, do you find '16:9' ticked and 'Automatic Pan&Scan' checked? If so, uncheck 'Automatic Pan&Scan' and check 'Automatic Letterbox' instead. 'OK' back to the main screen, save the change, burn to disc, and test it out.

[DB83]

I think the AR issue is because you have over-ridden the settings by changing the VTS properties. These should be left as 'Same as Project Properties'.

When you start a project, you get just one, the Root, menu. If you want more menus, you go to the menu option at top of the screen and choose 'Add New Menu'. When you create your buttons on the Root menu, you right-click on the button and select the link option.

[ricardouk]

about the aspect ratio... i haven't used dvd lab for a while but couldn´t your dvd player be setup to pan and scan? Does that option in the dvd player settings override whatever aspect ratio you setup in dvd lab? I'm not sure but that could be the reason why it doesn´t display properly.

i dont have dvd lab installed but i remember that besides setting aspect ratio there was an option where we could setup what the aspect ratio would be in a 16:9 and in a 4:3 tv.

hope it helps

[aedipuss]

make sure your dvd player is setup properly to display widescreen. i've made hundreds of dvds with dvdlab and never had one not display properly. make sure your project properties are set like this.

[_Al_]

One more thing, there could be mpg videos where AR is somehow not right in the first place, and it slips through DVD LabPro not fixed, so you can have settings all right and still have this problem. To be more specific, Pinnacle can produce this mpg.

As for menu, as was said you need to set it as root menu.

[Janssen]

Well, strangely i think someone messed up the DVD player i was testing the DVDs on. I set the setting back to 4:3 letterbox on the player per say and everything is fine again.

I realized that the 'menu' button pops up the DVD settings for the AR option. Might be a bad thing to hijack. I'll leave it as is and only use the 'title menu' and 'disc menu' at the top of the remote, which are correctly set by the authoring program.

Case closed.