DVD Flick aspect ratio issues

[LaxerFL]

I am using DVD Flick to convert mp4 video files to DVD format and burn to disc. On the computer, the videos play in 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio. DVD Flick correctly sets the aspect ratio to 16:9. After burning and playing the DVD in a standalone player, the videos are 4:3 and "squished". It isn't cutting off parts on the sides but compressing the entire picture and everyone is tall and skinny.
I am not sure how to correct this as DVD Flick is set to 16:9 already. Any tips or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

LaxerFL

[manono]

If it's really incorrectly playing as 4:3, you can easily fix it after the fact using PGCEdit.

That doesn't answer the question (and I've never used DVD Flick), but it's a workaround until you solve the problem.

[davexnet]

Anamorphic DVD's (if encoded correctly) will look tall and skinny if the DVD player is set to W/S and you watch them on a
4:3 TV. It's the player itself that squashes the video (top to bottom) so they look right on a 4:3 TV.

[orsetto]

DVDflick is a handy little DVD conversion/authoring tool, I use it every day. But like most automated all-in-one tools, it isn't perfect and doesn't have a complete set of manual fine-tuning settings. One of the fine-tune settings it lacks is the ability to consistently flag individual files for correct playback on all kinds of TV (16:9 or 4:3).

davexnet is of course correct that the DVD player is supposed to automatically unsqueeze and letterbox anamorphic videos for playback on a 4:3 television, but this automated framing system fails if the files on the DVD don't have the necessary flag embedded that triggers the DVD player. No flag means the video remains squeezed on a 4:3 television and will not automatically unsqueeze on a 16:9 display either, requiring one to manually expand the framing with the 16:9 TV remote.

Since DVDflick does not offer the ability to set this flag for each individual video, it is totally reliant on the framing data already being present in the MP4, AVI or MKV source video files. I find about 80% of video clips I download have the flag, and if made into a DVD with DVDflick they will automatically expand to fill a 16:9 TV or letterbox to fit a 4:3 TV. But 20% of the files floating around out there do not have the flag set, so after DVD conversion they will look squeezed on a 4:3 TV and need to be manually stretched on a 16:9 TV.

Sometimes you can fix this by playing with DVDflick's Edit Video:Aspect Ratio controls, but it rarely works the way one expects and can screw up the framing even more. If you primarily view your DVDflick DVDs on a 4:3 TV, or want reliable auto-unsqueeze on a 16:9 TV, you'll need to use something like the PGCEdit tool suggested by manono to post-process the VIDEO_TS folder created by DVDflick before you burn it to DVD. DVDflick itself was abandoned by its developer three years ago and is no longer supported, so no chance it will ever be updated to include this important feature.

[davexnet]

The source code for DVD Flick is available; it's unfortunate nobody had the time to pick it up.

[LaxerFL]

Thanks for the replies guys. It ended up being her TV. For some reason it was defaulting to 4:3 instead of Widescreen and that was why the aspect ratio was off. Don't know why I didn't think of checking that before. All the TVs in my house auto set their aspect ratios but not my friends...

[orsetto]

Good point: I forgot auto-aspect-framing is not included on every TV! My Sony will auto-frame if the video has embedded aspect data, but my Panasonic will not and requires manual framing selection for every new source or video.

Even when using my "automated" Sony TV, however, sometimes a DVD created by DVDflick will fail to trigger 16:9 expansion and I have to do it manually with the remote. I frequently make compilations of five or six downloaded videos per DVD, and playback does get very annoying when 4 out of 6 auto-expand but 2 of 6 stubbornly jump back into squeezed 4:3 mode (forcing me to override the TV's assumption that the clip is 4:3). Lending these DVDs to friends always leads to trouble: its amazing how few people have any clue about the framing button on their TV remote (and trying to explain it just makes their eyes glaze over).