TMPGEnc Settings for 16:9 Home Movies

[heyjjjaded]

Hi -
A few months ago, I received great advice here to help me select the proper TMPGEnc settings as I was encoding home movies shot with my Sony TRV22 camcorder (encoding to MPEG-2 NTSC and burning to DVD). Everything has been perfect, but now we are getting rid of our standard 4:3 TV and buying a new widescreen TV. I have already figured out how to change the setting on my camcorder to now record in 16:9 mode. But I am not positive on what exactly I need to change on the TMPGEnc settings.

Under the VIDEO tab, what should my settings be for:
1. SIZE
2. ASPECT RATIO

Under the ADVANCED tab, what should my settings be for:
1. SOURCE ASPECT RATIO
2. VIDEO ARRANGE METHOD

Is there anything I'm forgetting? My goal is to leave as much as I can the same and only change what I need to now create home DVDs for our new widescreen TV. Thanks very much!

[hrlslcbr]

I have encoded some 16:9 videos with these settings and they look great:

The SIZE should be 720x480 most of the time (you can also use 704 or 352)
The ASPECT RATIO should always be set to 16:9 if you want to output 16:9 video (otherwise use 4:3)
Under the advanced tab, I think that the SOURCE ASPECT RATIO is only important if you select one of the "keep aspect ratio" settings under VIDEO ARRANGE METHOD.
So choose Full Screen as the video arrange method and 1:1 (VGA) as the source aspect ratio.
Hope this helps you.

[heyjjjaded]

Thanks, hrlslcbr. I'm glad you posted this, because I would have guessed differently for SOURCE ASPECT RATIO. I would have guessed either 16:9 525 Line (NTSC) or 16:9 Display. I don't really UNDERSTAND what these settings mean as much as you do. I'll try these settings though ... thank you.

[hrlslcbr]

No problem . Try with the settings I gave you and see if your encoded video looks good. I haven't had any problems with all these settings and I have encoded many 16:9 videos.