Best options for Widescreen HDTV?

[mwest]

Hey All,

I am trying to author DVDs for a widescreen HDTV (16:9.) What are the best options to make sure the aspect is displayed correctly on my TV?

As well, a bit off topic: I own a bunch of "anamorphic" DVDs. How can I make sure they are displaying correctly on my TV?

Thanks,

Matthew

[Case]

I am trying to author DVDs for a widescreen HDTV (16:9.) What are the best options to make sure the aspect is displayed correctly on my TV?

Set Autosize to "DVD 16:9" for widescreen material.

As well, a bit off topic: I own a bunch of "anamorphic" DVDs. How can I make sure they are displaying correctly on my TV?

Your DVD player should have settings on the aspect ratio of the tv. E.g. on my Pioneer, it's in the Setup>Video>TV Screen>16:9 (Wide).

[mwest]

Case,

YOU THE MAN! Thanks... I will have to give that a try. I am going to set my DVD players options and see if that works... Now if I have a normal anamorphic DVD, how is that encoded? Is it like using "DVD" video setting or the "DVD 16:9" setting?

Thanks,

Matthew

[Case]

An anamorphic DVD is encoded with a "16:9" setting to use all the available vertical resolution (and still be compatible with 4:3 tv sets).

Use ffmpegX's "DVD" size setting for 4:3 and "DVD 16:9" for 16:9/anamorphic.

[mwest]

Case,

Thanks for the help. I finally got an answer from Onkyo. My 16:9 option was unselectable when I tried to set it... Apparently, I can only set that option on my player when there isn't a DVD in the player. So all this time, I had been trying to set the option, and all I had to do was eject a DVD!

Thanks a bunch for the encoding info Case! I haven't found many documents that describe the anamorphic encoding very well. How can the same encoding be interpreted by a DVD player to play on both 4:3 and 16:9? Is the same image stretched differently depending on the TV display ratio?

Matthew

[Case]

http://www.dvdweb.co.uk/information/anamorphic.swf

[mwest]

Thanks Case. That was simple. Too bad all the other descriptions of anamorphic I read were over complicating a simple process.

Matthew

[meldavid]

If I may hijack this thread, I just want to ask if ffmpegX can make an anamorphic 16:9 DVD from a non-anamorphic source (eg. an AVI)?

Will ffmpegX stretch the picture to make better use of the vertical resolution of a DVD, and when inserted into a DVD player, it will play back with the right aspect ratio?


Or do I have to load the avi into a video-editing program and convert to DV and apply some video filters to stretch the picture and make it 1.78 times taller, before converting to mpg2?

Is there even any point in doing this? Will it not improve the picture quality at all?