encode 4:3 or 16:9 DVD from letterbox satellite capture

[mracer]

I am working in NTSC.

I have a widescreen movie I captured from satellite to DV format AVI using ADVC-100. The video was captured from DirecTV. The movie is Grand Prix (1966), presented in letterbox, and I think the format is 2.35:1. I want to make a DVD of this movie since this movie is not available on DVD and the letterbox laserdisc is long out of print.

My Dilemas:

1. encode as a 4:3 DVD using letterbox, masking off the black areas in TMPGEnc.

2. encode a 16:9 DVD, cropping out the black areas in TMPGEnc to create a widescreen DVD.

3. How in the heck will I ever get all 3 hours on 1 DVD?

[andkiich]

You could try encoding both ways, but I would go with the 16:9, croppign the black bars.

You'll have to lower your bitrate to get three hours, somewhere around the 3000 mark, give or take. Check out the bitrate calculators.

[vmesquita287]

Encode at 4:3. Because of the big black borders, you can get up to 4 or 5 hours in 1 DVD with this 2.35:1 stuff encoded in a 4:3 box. In this case there's no point in encoding at 16:9, since your matherial wasn't originally anamorphic.
If you encode at 16:9, you'll only be artifically enlarging he picture, but not gaining true resolution, and worse, loosing compressibility. If you ever need to see on a 16:9 display, you can always use the zoom function widescreen TVs provide.

[j1d10t]

If you do encode as 16x9 you would need to IVTC it (you'd need to IVTC to enlarge it), thus taking it from 29.970fps to 23.976fps, which would give you more bitrate for each frame... But if you IVTC it and still encode as 4:3 you'd get the same thing (more bitrate for each frame). But if you are going to encode as 4:3 you wouldn't need to IVTC it.

Also, what resolution were you planning on going with? 720, 704, 352x480? And will you be watching it on a widescreen TV?

This is really a personal preference issue, so the only things we can offer are options, and help doing whatever you decide to do.....

[mracer]

I really appreciate the input guys. Many, many thanks. I'll actually be watching on both a 27" Toshiba 4:3 standard TV and a 43" Sony 4:3 HDTV that does "the squeeze" inside the TV for 16:9 material.

As far as resolution, I was hoping to be able to use 720 or 704x480, so the dv won't have to be resized, and also because I think DirecTV is at least 480x480, if not more. Then again, I am only using the middle part of the picture at 2.35:1. Heck, I don't know for sure, but when I see 352x480 mpeg encoded from DirecTV it seems to be loosing quite a bit of the original detail. I guess I'll just have to experiment to see what looks best. I would certainly like to maintain as much of the original (although certainly not great) picture quality as possible.

Right now, I'm thinking I will encode 4:3 masking within TMPGEnc for the reasons vmesquita287 stated. "Because of the big black borders, you can get up to 4 or 5 hours in 1 DVD with this 2.35:1 stuff encoded in a 4:3 box." and "encode at 16:9, you'll only be artifically enlarging he picture, but not gaining true resolution".

[mracer]

From my preliminary tests it appears that a 2 DVD set will be required. I am not satisfied with the 352x480 at approximately 3200kbps that will be required for the 3 hour movie.