aspect ratio (2,35:1 avi to 16:9 DVD)

[Erevos]

I captured an old movie from TV using virtualdub at 720x576 PAL

After some editing, resizing and croping the final avi is a 720x306 (2,35:1) movie (Cinemascope if you remember).

I want to create a DVD that the aspect ratio of the movie remains unchanged. eg. when I play it in a 16:9 TV to have black bars up and down, and when I play it in a 4:3 TV to have bigger black bars.

What settings do I have to put in tmpgenc to do so? I have created more than 50 DVDs so far but I never played with aspect ratios before.

thanks.

[reboot]

On the advanced tab, set source 1:1 VGA, and "keep aspect ratio 2".
This will letterbox it, based on the output type you have on the Settings tab.
If you set the output at 4:3 then it will work on a normal TV. You will have to change the aspect to view on a widescreen.

[Erevos]

After some research, I believe the answer is to create an anamorphic DVD as seen at the link below:

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/anamorphic/anamorphic235demo.html

Does anyone know how to do this in tmpgenc ?

[reboot]

What you want to do in tmpgenc then, is set it to "Center" on the Advanced tab. This will not resize the video, it will stay at 2.35:1
Set aspect ratio to 16:9 on the Settings tab.
This should play properly on both 4:3 and 16:9 TV's.
Both aspect ratios use the same picture size, however the 16:9 (widescreen anamorphic) image is horizontally compressed on DVD and then stretched by the DVD player when viewing.
What this does is encode at full vertical resolution but put a marker on the disc just like the original DVD to tell your player that it is 16:9. Therefore if you set up your DVD player saying you have a widescreen TV, the DVD player outputs at full vertical resolution but if you set it for a 4:3 TV the player does the squashing up and adding of black bars. So you get the best of both worlds - perfect playback on either TV type.
A quote from that website, "Since the 2.35:1 aspect ratio is wider, the bars are necessary to maintain the proper composition. These are actually present in the signal. Normally, you would never see the video in this state. The only time you would see this "squished" picture, is if you were watching the disc on an improperly set-up DVD player, using a Standard 4x3 TV - the player thinks you have a Digital 16x9 TV. A quick adjustment in the player's menu would correct this problem."

[Erevos]

Finaly I found the time to make some tests.

It worked with source 1:1 VGA, and "keep aspect ratio" or "keep aspect ratio 2" (I had the same results with both settings). This way the aspect ratio is correct in both 4:3 and 16:9. The width has to be 720 to work, or else it gets distorted.

If I use "center" the video is corect in 4:3 but gets streched horizontaly in 16:9 (people are short and fat).

Thanks for the help.