widescreen on camcorder, 4:3 on DVD recorder?

[moxiecat]

Hello,

A friend asked me to transfer a MiniDV tape of his wedding to DVD. Like all transfers, I hooked up my MiniDV camcorder to my Toshiba HDD DVD recorder to run it, which always works fine.

But something happened with this tape that I've never seen. It plays back on the MiniDV camcorder screen as a letterboxed image, and the onscreen counter numbers seem stretched. When I transfer it to the Toshiba, the Toshiba converts it to a full-screen 4:3 image. I've tried to set the Toshiba's record setting to 16:9 but the recorder refuses to recognize the letterboxing.

Is this a sign that the tape was recorded in HD? Is there any way to get it to a DVD recorder with the letterboxing intact? My MiniDV camcorder is about five years old, so would it even play a HD videotape? My friend is no help, because someone else did the videotaping, so he doesn't know how it was recorded. I have zero experience with HD, so I'm really at a loss as to what's going on here.

Any help is most appreciated. Thank you.

[zoobie]

you'd just get a blue screen if HDV is tried to be played back on a regular DV cam
maybe try to get the cam it was shot with to run it off

[moxiecat]

Good suggestion, but unfortunately I can't get the camera. Like I said, it was a friend of my friend who shot it, and he's not even local to my area.

More info: I tried running the MiniDV camera with the tape into Final Cut Pro. On the regular "DV NTSC 48 kHz" setting it is 4:3 just like the DVD recorder. But changing it to "DV NTSC 48 kHz Anamorphic" and the letterbox bars appear. Does this mean anything to anyone? (I'm having trouble getting the sound accepted correctly in FCP, though.)

Any other ideas?

[Baldrick]

It's sounds like a 16:9 anamorphic dv and your hdd recorder can't record in that mode or it wont identify the dv as anamorphic. You could record in 4:3 and then change the dvd to 16:9 using for example ifoar2ws and burn a new dvd.

[moxiecat]

I've now tried the tape with four different makes/models of DVD recorders and they all do the same thing: squeezing the picture to be 4:3. Very frustrating.

Regarding the tool you posted. So what I would do is record the squished 4:3 image on the DVD recorder, rip it to the computer, and then the program you mentioned will stretch it out and add black horizontal bars? Please let me know if I am correct on that. If so, it sounds like the best solution. Thanks!

[moxiecat]

Aha! I think I found a fix. I can set the DVD recorder part of the Toshiba (not the HDD) to 16:9. The recorder output on the TV doesn't show that it's recording in 16:9 until you record something and play it back. When I recorded a few minutes of the tape onto a DVD-RW and played it back, the letterboxing was in place. I'm not sure the aspect ratio is exactly matches the letterboxing on the MiniDV camcorder screen, but it's close enough!

Thanks to everyone who helped, I appreciate it very much.