ISO WAYS TO ALTER 9x16 VIDS TO 4x3 OR 16x9 FOR DVD

[MaxManLA]

I have lots of videos in the tall, thin 9x16 aspect ratio. I want to put them onto a playable DVD but it seems all of the DVD conversion software available will only work correctly with 4x3 or 16x9 aspect ratios.

The only method I've used so far is to convert the videos to AVI and then use VirtualDub to letterbox-resize them to the desired aspect ratio--a very slow, time-consuming method o say the least, due to the necessary format conversion.

Almost all of the 9x16 videos are MPG or MKV format and I'm hoping to find a faster, easier way of letterboxing the videos. What software and/or method would you recommend for my purposes?

[Sharc]

DVD specification allows 4:3 and 16:9 only. Hence you have to letterbox the video accordingly. Any DVD authoring tool would reject anything else.
Is the DVD format and DVD file structure (i.e. full DVD compliance) a must? Are menus required?
The conversion could probably be done with an ffmpeg commandline which would probably be faster than taking the VirtualDub route. Upload a sample.

[davexnet]

I'm pretty sure both DVDStyler and AVStoDVD can take the source as-is and add the necessary borders.

[Cornucopia]

Easy way to get what you want: shoot your 9x16 footage, rotate it onto its side and reencode to mpeg2, author to dvd, play it to a tv that has been rotated in the counter direction.


Scott

[Sharc]

I'm pretty sure both DVDStyler and AVStoDVD can take the source as-is and add the necessary borders.

Both are great DVD tools, yes. Both take care of correct letterboxing for DVD. From past experience I am just not sure how they handle the orientation (portrait vs landscape). One has to try though - long time since I used these tools.

[MaxManLA]

Thanks everyone! I'll check out the DFVD authoring tools mentioned and hope they can letterbox the input vids--that would be IDEAL!

I don't think the rotate vids for DVD conversion and counter rotate the TV for watching the playback is the right solution for me, but it's an option if all else fails so I'm grateful for the suggestion.

I think if there are no authoring tools that can letterbox the vids to 4x3 or 16x9, I'll stick with the method using VirtualDub to letterbox. If so, I'll want a tool that can batch convert and is fast. Any recommendations?

Again, thanks for your help and advice!

[davexnet]

I'm pretty sure both DVDStyler and AVStoDVD can take the source as-is and add the necessary borders.

Both are great DVD tools, yes. Both take care of correct letterboxing for DVD. From past experience I am just not sure how they handle the orientation (portrait vs landscape). One has to try though - long time since I used these tools.

Good point. I think for A2D, the functionality is missing. It may not recognize and apparently doesn't offer a method to rotate
without manually editing the script
DVDStyler I'm not sure about - but since it has been developed more recently that A2D hopefully it works

[Sharc]

I think if there are no authoring tools that can letterbox the vids to 4x3 or 16x9, I'll stick with the method using VirtualDub to letterbox. If so, I'll want a tool that can batch convert and is fast. Any recommendations?

ffmpeg batch file for conversion maybe. Upload 2 samples of your clips (4:3, 9:16).
Or try an NLE like Shotcut which should handle the portrait/landscape issue. Still you would eventually need a DVD authoring tool.

[Sharc]

You still tell us little to nothing about your sources. Nevertheless here a proposal using ffmpeg for producing mpeg2 NTSC 4:3 files.

Put below code into a text file, rename it *.cmd and put it onto your desktop (icon). Now drag and drop your sources onto the icon and let it do the job.

:: resizes portrait to 480 height, pads to 720 and encodes for 4:3 NTSC DVD

@echo off
:next
if "%~1"=="" goto done

ffmpeg -y -i "%~1" -c:a ac3 -c:v mpeg2video -b:v 7000k -maxrate 8000k -bf 2 -b_strategy 2 -mpeg_quant 1 -mbd rd -trellis 2 -cmp 2 -subcmp 2 -mpv_flags qp_rd -filter:v "scale=304:480:flags=bilinear, pad=720:480:(ow-iw)/2:(oh-ih)/2, setdar=4/3" "%~1_out.vob"

shift
goto next
:done

pause

You can also put your source files into a folder and drag and drop this folder onto the icon on your desktop. The files will be processed one by one automatically.