4:3 Pan & Scan conversion to Widescreen

[therealmrmustang]

This may not be possible but here goes...

I have a DVD that was originally mastered as 4:3 pan and scan. Would it be possible to convert the original format to 16:9 widescreen?

Is there a ripping software capable of this?

Any and all insight is greatly appreciated.


Thank you!

[Baldrick]

It is impossible to get the original 16:9 format, the video is cropped...gone..removed......you can't get it back. You can make it 16:9 widescreen but then you must crop even more of the video (bottom and top).

[therealmrmustang]

It is impossible to get the original 16:9 format, the video is cropped...gone..removed......you can't get it back. You can make it 16:9 widescreen but then you must crop even more of the video (bottom and top).

I was just curious...

It seems that as you watch a Movie that in 4:3 pan and scan, your field of view shifts from side to side. You would think that all the digital information would be there to make the conversion.

I guess I don't understand the process...

[Cinemagic]

As mentioned, once it has been converted to 4:3 that is the only information remaining on the disc.

I have taken a 4:3 on a 53" Hitachi 16:9, expanded the picture and then zoomed. It filled the screen without having a distorted picture. On some movies, this turns out to be quite acceptable. On others, it crops too much to be enjoyable. It mostly depends upon the number of close up shots the director uses vs. medium and long shots. Medium and long shots can be zoomed without much of an effect, but close up shots cut heads off.

You could import it into Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5, set initially to 16:9 and then expand and crop to fit. Render and export to a DVD. You could even take certain close-up scenes and move the crop so that the tops of heads weren't cut off. Quite a lot of work. This might be good if you are trying to get home movies that were shot in 4:3 format to output to a 16:9 DVD. But if it's a commercial DVD, then buying the widescreen DVD version would certainly be a lot easier and result in a better quality image.

[Steve Stepoway]

You would think that all the digital information would be there to make the conversion.

I guess I don't understand the process...

When they (the studio) generate the pan-N-scan verison, they crop out everything they don't want to show before it's encoded in mpeg-2 for the DVD. Your player is not doing the pan and scan -- you see all that's on the DVD.

[therealmrmustang]

But if it's a commercial DVD, then buying the widescreen DVD version would certainly be a lot easier and result in a better quality image.

That's the reason why I want to convert the disc that I have... the only version available is the 4:3 pan and scan.

Thanks for the help...

[mazinz]

but encoding 4:3 to a 16x9 doesnt kill too much, all considering (and depending on a few other things).

I had to do this for a film i really liked ( i was mixing in the tv footage with the dvd release of a film).

In my case i had to cut 60 pixels off the top and bottom of the screen in order to have the aspect ratio match properly and be the same format. And the 60 pixels off the top/bottom really did not make the 4:3 pic loose much of anything (then again i was probably lucky with that)