Widescreen AVI to DVD????

[g4jedi]

Ok, so I have these AVI files that I downloaded off the net. They are in widescreen format. How do I get them onto a DVD without "squishing" the picture? I have ALL the software tools, but I just need to know how to get the resolution right. In that past, I've successfully created DVDs from AVI files with ffmpegX, but they were normal resolution. Any help here would be awesome.

[ZeroSix]

use ff and add the "letterbox" option. It makes the black bars where necessary, and allows MPEG2 [mpeg2enc] encoding, thus turning a 16:9 video into 4:3 while using MPEG2. I believe it uses Quicktime decoding as opposed to mencoder, so running your .avi file through Divx Doctor to obtain a .mov container would be necessary.

Hope this helps.

[g4jedi]

Ok. I thought that would do the trick. I just wanted to make sure before running ffmpegX for SEVERAL HOURS.

[AT-TEH-NAY]

I have another trick that i used to put a divx i "reloaded" onto my computer. I had the same problem as you, couldn't get the aspect ratio right. I ran it through divx doctor (with only decompress audio checked)
and ffmpegx converted it fine, but only in 16x9 mode, which I didn't want.
My source was only 640x272 so i didn't want to have a streched image to fit 720x480 in 16x9. I wanted to make a widescreen movie fit properly into a 720x480 full screen video with forced black bars. This was mainly because using ffmpegx to convert a <720x480 video up to 720x480, looks like shit. Ffmpeg also doesn't allow you to do this, the black bars it adds aren't big enough. And my source file is also 25 fps, but i need a NTSC standard, which ffmpeg also doesn't convert right, so I thought I was fucked and gave up for a while.
But then i tried quicktime PRO. awesome program. It's alot easier to get avi's into MPEG2 format with quiktime pro. It solves my PAL->NTSC problem. It converted my 25 fps to 29.95 and the audio syncs up fine throughout. Also i can trick it into putting a widescreen image within a full screen DVD format. All you have to do was convert my .avi into a .mov file(with dix doctor) and the following:

1) Make a black image in appleworks paint or whatever program you want, appleworks allows you to save in a quicktime image format which might help, I don't know.
2) Open your avi and the black pic in quicktime.
3) Select the black pic and go to Edit, then copy
4) Select your avi and go to Edit, Add scaled
5) Then go to Movie, then Get movie properties and make sure the layer of your avi is lower than the black background, I made the avi -1 and the background 0.
6) Then in the movie properties of the background, go to size, click adjust and move it untill it says the size is 720x480
7) Then adjust the location of your avi with the same option as above, but don't resize it, just center it in the black background. Its ok to have black bars on the sides as well because most TV's dont show the entire image anyways. My 640x272 avi centered in a 720x480 image looked fine on my TV, it actually aligned perfectly with the edge.
8) Go to File, Export and change the format to MPEG2.
9) Click options, select NTSC (or PAL if you want), select 4:3 and adjust bit rate to whatever, I had mine set to 7 mbps and my 2h 15mins movie came out to about 5.5 gigs.
10) Now save it and author it with sizzle but you will need to convert the aiff audio quicktime made into a format for dvd. But ffmpeg fucks this up by doing some gay error as well but you can trick it into working, just use the multiplex feature and join the two as a mpeg2. FFmpeg will convert the audio into a mp2 at 224 kps, which is good enough for a dvd made from a divx.

Now with your .mv2 and you .mp2 files, you can make a dvd image with sizzle. But if your movie is too big, just mount the image you created with sizzle in toast (i used titanium 5.2) and use DVD2oneX. Just use the video_ts folder from the mounted DVD image. Now burn it and it should look awesome and not have all those ******* gay artifacts that ffmpeg adds in for fun. When i did this, i didn't have to scale my original avi up or anything, so it looked great, as close as the original as possible and I even noticed quicktime pro encodes faster than ffmpeg when doing this. It only took about 2 hours to convert a 1h15 .mov into mpeg2 on a 1ghz imac. You can have your divx on a dvd-r in less than a day, whole process only took about 5-6 hours for me.

[g4jedi]

Sounds like a plan! I'll have to flip the audio though, since it is reversed in the original AVI file. See this post:

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=175559

I'll most likely author it in something else other than Sizzle too, since my Sony DVD Player won't fast forward Sizzle authored DVDs. I assume when you export to MPEG 2 from QT Pro, your using a single pass? I converted a 2 hour QT movie last night and it took over 9 hours on my dual 1Ghz G4 tower.

[KaiCherry]

I wrote something like this for Chris last year...MoVtoDVD I think I called it. I'll see if we can dig up a copy of it for ya.

Has a switch for 16:9 or 4:3's IIRC and made the widescreen stuff anamorphic.

BTW, most modern DVD players do the black bars for ya' on 4:3 TV's if the dvd is anamorphic...

-K

[ZeroSix]

Kai!! Where y6a been?!?

[KaiCherry]

Busy

We are getting ready to release...something that we think (most folks) will like

-K

[g4jedi]

Bring it on! The more conversion tools the better. Just got my copy of Toast 6. It's not what I'd hoped it would be. It gagged on enery mpeg I threw at it and it defualted to PAL on a QuickTime movie. Oh well, that's another topic.

[g4jedi]

AT-TEH-NAY,
I tried your technique above. First off it took my dual 1Ghz 6 hours to export to mpeg2 from QuickTime of a 1 hour and 50 minute movie. You're 1 ghz iMac must be on steroids! Anyway, I can't seem to convert that AIFF file in ANYTHING. MMT gags saying there is a file missing. ffmpegX basically does the same thing. In your post, you say "trick ffmpegX into working, just use the multiplex feature and join the two as a mpeg2. FFmpeg will convert the audio into a mp2 at 224 kps, which is good enough for a dvd made from a divx." Can you tell me exactly how to do this? I can't even seem to find this "multiplex" feature in ffmpegX. Unless you mean in the "tools" section, where I tried the "mux as.." feature. That didn't work. It says AIFF is an unknown format.

[AT-TEH-NAY]

I did mean the "Mux as" feature and i selected MPEG-2, not DVD or anything else. When i did that, ffmpeg seemed to except the aiff file. Also i don't know why the conversion process took so much longer for you. I do have 768 megs of ram, but other than that my 17" imac is all stock. I also don't know if it was single pass or not because there was no option for that for me. My video didn't fill up the whole screen, maybe half in total. I have black bars on all sides because i didn't scale the video at all. The side bars don't even appear on my TV. Maybe thats why it was faster for me, i didn't scale the video size at all.

[AT-TEH-NAY]

Also if your audio problem is just the left and right channels switched, i suggest just switching the red and white audio cables on your stereo or tv whenever you watch whatever movie it is. This way is alot easier than pissing around with audio apps.