How to add an option for 16:9 or 4:3 in a self-authored DVD?

[Jim200]

I'm using Ulead DVD Movie Factory 3.5, and I want to edit one of my home-made DVD's to have another option.

I want there to be a menu or option or whatever on the main menu that asks whether you want to display the movie in 4:3 or 16:9.

I'm guessing all I'll need to do is encode the actual movie files the same way except in 4:3 mode and add them to the "movie file" list?

What would I do then?

[Krispy Kritter]

My guess is since it is a home movie, it is in 4:3 format. There is no way to convert it to 16:9 without cropping or distorting the image. You would save a lot of time (and disc space) to leave it in its native format.

[SLK001]

What is your video's current aspect ratio? Usually, you convert 16:9 video to 4:3 - not the other way. If you WERE to convert 4:3 to 16:9, you would add black bars (or really, any color you want) on the SIDES.

I believe that you can do the selection in the menu IF your DVD is set up for both letterbox and pan and scan viewing, by using command sequences to set certain values in the registers.

[Jim200]

Ah, what I meant by home movie is I took a movie release from the computer and encoded it from an AVI to an MPEG. I had to do this because I wanted to hardcode subtitles into it (by splitting the audio and video, and using TMPGEnc (free) to encode it while ffdshow ran the subtitles during the conversion).

I already have the option to hardcode the subtitles into the original avi (which is 4:3); all I'd need is the audio. There are two problems with this, however.

I want to be able to do the above with AC3 audio, not WAV (like what I used with my original conversion). TMPGEnc (free) doesn't seem to allow .ac3 files as the audio source.

Also, do I HAVE to make another whole conversion and put it in the UleadMovieFactory project? That would take too much space, more than the 4.7gb DVD+RW I have can handle. How can I just add an option to enable 16:9 or not?

If I'd have to use another DVD author, I'm fine with that (except DVD Maestro, which I can't find any links to).

Thanks.

[Jim200]

What is your video's current aspect ratio? Usually, you convert 16:9 video to 4:3 - not the other way. If you WERE to convert 4:3 to 16:9, you would add black bars (or really, any color you want) on the SIDES.

I believe that you can do the selection in the menu IF your DVD is set up for both letterbox and pan and scan viewing, by using command sequences to set certain values in the registers.

The original AVI (with dolby digital AC3 audio)'s aspect ratio is 4:3, and I made it 16:9 by changing the UleadMovieFactory MPEG settings.

How would I add black bars? And what do you mean by "using command sequences to set certain values in the registers"? I'm thinking the latter option is the better one, since it would be automatic for whatever TV I put it on (I think).

[ktnwin]

Home video can be taped using wide screen format (Sony DV camcorder has this 16:9 option). The camcorder still record full vide (compressed horizontally).

When I authored the tapes recorded this way, all authoring software will produce a DVD that play with correct size on a wide screen TV, but on a normal TV, everybody look very very tall and thin. This is because the authoring software set the DVD as 4:3 mode.

To correct this, use IfoEdit to set the 16:9 flag before burning the DVD. The resulting DVD will play correctly on both TV sets (just like a commercial wide screen movie).

Hope this helps.

[Krispy Kritter]

The menu choice that you are wanting to add is usually used to choose between 2 versions of the movie on the disc. If you are only wanting to put one version of the movie on the disk, there isn't much need for the menu option. The menu option only tells the dvd player which file to play, it doesn't alter the way it is played.