Authoring 16:9 DVD

[helloagain]

I have recently bought a 16:9 TV and since then I started shooting home video using the 16:9 mode. I used MS movie maker to capture the DV in 16:9 mode and burn them into SVCD and DVDs. The SVCD and DVD looks fine when play on the widescreen TV but when they are played on normal 4:3 TV, the picture is squeezed and people appear slimmer and taller.

Is there anyway I can author it so that when I burn it, it will have the 2 black bars on top just like those wide screen movie DVD. In that case, I can play it in both 4:3 and 16:9 TV?

Thanks in advance.

[Baldrick]

Please do not cross post. One topic in one forum is enough.

Do you author with ms movie maker??? Or what tool are you authoring with? Cause it must support 16:9 and then should the dvd player stretch the image to correct aspect ratio if you have a 4:3 tv.

[SHS]

I hope you got the REAL DEAL 16:9 DVCamcorder becuase they cost lot of money being one that say 16:9 mode are not the REAL DEAL there fake I forgot where I saw that.
So when go play them back on reg 4:3 that what happing they don't like rigth but a reg wide screen movie DVD always look rigth becuase they record with REAL 16:9 Camcorder.
Yes just like 16:9 DVD on 4:3 you always have 2 black bars unless format video back to 4:3.

[helloagain]

I used TMPEGEnc and TMPEGEnc DVD Author.

What I want is to have 2 black bars on top and bottom when I play the DVD on regular 4:3 TV? Any recommendation on which software I should use?

The current problem I am facing is, it is playing right on widescreen TV but compress on 4:3 TV horizontally so people looks slimmer and taller..... I want to make a DVD which can play on both types of TV.

Thanks

[FulciLives]

Hello

Most authoring programs will either burn straight to your DVD or create an image or make what I think is often called a TITLE SET which means it makes a DIR on your HDD with your AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS folder with all the DVD files. Looks just like when you RIP a DVD (in file mode) with DVD Decrypter to your HDD.

If your authoring program does not support 16x9 but it does support writing a TITLE SET then do that ... then you can use a program called IFOEdit to modify the TITLE SET to 16x9

You open up any and all IFO files you find in the VIDEO_TS folder. Start up IFOEdit then load your IFO files. You will see that there is a setting for 4:3 for both the menu and the actual video. You double click on that line in IFOEdit and a screen pops up that will let you select 16x9

When you are done editing the IFO files this way you can then burn an image of the TITLE SET using a program called ImgTools (the "classic" version) then burn the image with DVD Decrypter.

Sounds complicated but it is rather easy.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

*** EDIT ***
ImgTools does not "burn" it just creats a filename.iso image file which you THEN burn with DVD Decrypter. There is a guide on the DOOM9 website on how to use DVD2ONE and this guide tells you how to select the TITLE SET that DVD2ONE creates (just like your authoring program will make such a TITLE SET) and then how to use ImgTools (classic) to make an image (ISO file) and finally how to burn that ISO image file with DVD Decrypter.

[redlester]

I've been experimenting with this and think I've finally cracked it. I'm using TMPGEnc to encode and Sonic Foundry DVD Architect to burn.

Capturing 16:9 PAL video from digital TV using Premiere, results in an .avi file in 4:3 "squeezed" format when viewed on the PC. Encode using TMPGEnc set to 720x400, 16:9 display for the Video Stream & aspect ratio settings, and in the Advanced tab set Source Aspect Ratio to 16:9 (625 line PAL in my case).

In DVD Architect set the Project Settings to "PAL WS".

Tried this on a test file, and it plays anamorphic 16:9 on my TV, but letterboxed on my PC screen in PowerDVD - exactly what I wanted.

If you're using something other than DVD Architect I'm sure there must be a similar setting to select 4:3 or 16:9?

[FulciLives]

@REDLESTER

That doesn't sound "right" to me. If you capture or shoot DV cam footage at 16x9 then you will have a full screen image that is stretched on a 4:3 display but looks normal on a widescreen display. Such footage should be processed THAT way ... you leave it full screen and streched ... including the MPEG2 encoding process. It is in the DVD authoring stage that you simply set the aspect ratio flag to 16x9 so that the footage will play back full screen on a widescreen TV (thus looking normal) but then it will be resized automatically by the DVD player for a 4:3 display. It is that simple.

You will only need to play around with resizing if your final output will be in a form that does not support 16x9 such as a VCD which does not offer aspect ratio changes upon playback like a DVD can (at least so far as stand alone DVD players go since you CAN resize a VCD if using a software media player on a computer).

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[redlester]

It is in the DVD authoring stage that you simply set the aspect ratio flag to 16x9 so that the footage will play back full screen on a widescreen TV (thus looking normal) but then it will be resized automatically by the DVD player for a 4:3 display. It is that simple.

Not on my system it isn't ! Have just tried what you suggest and the resulting DVD is fullscreen 4:3 stretched, i.e. NOT anamorphic. I could manually use the zoom on my TV to correct this, but that's precisely what I was trying to avoid! And presumably it would not be letterboxed widescreen on a 4:3 TV but would be stretched fullscreen. Perhaps it's a quirk of DVD Architect that the widescreen flag doesn't work properly? Actually, it's interesting to note that the opening menu (the default menu screen placed there by DVD Architect) IS anamorphic, but when I select and play the actual video capture, it's not anamorphic.

The only way I've found to get anamorphic widescreen is to first resize the capture during mpeg2 encoding as I described above. The other advantage of doing it this way is that if for any reason you wish to view the .mpg file on the PC, it is displayed at the correct aspect ratio.

[FulciLives]

@redlester

Then your authoring program is not working correctly!
If you can get your authoring program to create a VIDEO TITLE set (a DIR with an AUDEIO_TS and VIDEO_TS folders with all your DVD files) then do that then use IFOEdit to inspect all of the *.IFO files in the VIDEO_TS folder. Change all settings to 16x9 then create an image from the TITLE SET (using ImgTools) and then burn with DVD Decrypter.

It will work

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
If you use the 16x9 DVD template in TMPGEnc then I think the resulting mpeg file will automatically resize itself on the computer. Also if you use this template over the normal 4:3 template then your authoring program may function properly without the need to manually edit the *.IFO files with IFOEdit.

[Vejita-sama]

You should be able to author an anamorphic DVD. Some points to consider:

1) Anamorphic DVDs only work with 720x480 MPEG2 streams

2) You need to encode and author correctly. Authoring is easy (check 4:3 or 16:9) but depending on your encoder several settings may need to be worked with. If you're using TMPGenc just set 'source aspect ratio' to 16:9 AND output aspect ratio to 16:9. If you don't set the source, you're final encode will not be sized correctly

3) Is the DVD player on your standard TV set to 4:3? (I assume so but hey, you never know )