Frame Size issues for DVD

[Gabaldad]

First of all, as with all first time posters, I have to thank everyone for all the tips, tricks and info I've gotten from the community. It's a great place to visit. On to my question...

THE SITUATION:
I am involved in a project that has supplied me with a bunch of short films, all encoded in MPEG2. I need to take these films and author selected ones into one DVD. I'll never know which films are to be authored until an order is placed.

THE PROBLEM:
I am currently using DVDLab Pro to author discs and have been pretty happy with it. However, upon importing these films I get hung up on one error consistently and another one occasionally. The persistant error is that the file is not flagged for 4:3 or 16:9, and the other error pertains to the frame size. Some films are the proper 720x480, many others are not, the highth is shorter than 480. Authoring these films creates display problems on TV sets as the bottom part of the screen (the difference between the actual frame size and 480) is black. However, the films display fine on a computer. Re-encoding these films to 720x480 just stretched the frame and was pretty horrid.

THE QUESTION:
Is there any way around the frame size issue to make the films display properly on a TV? I didn't do the encodes, but the guy who did said he authored the films in Liquid Edition and Studio and the picture was centered in the screen automatically. Should I try a different authoring program, or are these films with the short screen sizes pretty well unusable and I should try to get the source material? Any suggestions are most appreciated.

Thanks-
Phil

[edDV]

It would help if you could post a still of the "short" frames. Best would be a frame cap from the MPeg2 input file.

It is best to render animations to correct size rather than scaling them later if at all possible.

[non-linear]

The problem has nothing to do with your authoring program, the problem is that the video is not DVD compliant. If you take a look at the "What is DVD" section on the left hand side of this page (near the top), you'll see what resolutions are acceptable for DVD. Sounds like the person who did the encoding has no clue on how to encode for DVD. DVD-lab is an excellent authoring program, however you have to have the audio and video properly encoded before you add them into your project.

As far as 16:9 flags, that is only needed when the video is in a 16:9 aspect ratio. If all your videos are fullscreen, then it's 4:3.

The only solution is to either get the guy who encoded them to do it over properly, or reencode them to proper DVD compliant video.