How best to change the "Aspect Ratio"

[jpetrick]

How best to change the "Aspect Ratio" (16:9, 4:3) in a DVD ripped to Hard Drive?

[Digifreak]

Try to be more specific, what are you doing with the ripped DVD and what are you trying to accomplish?

[jpetrick]

I'm using DVD Decryptor to rip a DVD9 (usually in 16:9) movie only to my drive. I want to burn it to a DVD+R in a 4:3 aspect. I have ifoedit but am not sure how to do it.

[Digifreak]

You can alter it with IFOEdit but if you alter the original it will be distorted assuming the original aspect is correct. I can find the parameter to edit when I get home from work tonight if you want. If what you are trying to do is eliminate the letterboxing of a 16:9 movie to fill up your 4:3 TV display, then you have to rip the fullframe (4:3) version if its available, just altering the parameter in IFOEdit will not accomplish this. If your problem is the 16:9 movie aspect not displaying correctly on your TV, then you need to set up your DVD player to tell it you are watching it on a 4:3 TV.

[jpetrick]

Yep! My problem is the 4:3 version is not available, and I thought I just needed to change the aspect ratio from 16:9 to 4:3 and burn it. From what you are saying, it's not that easy. I would reallyappreciate any help you could give me.

[DivXExpert]

If you wana change the aspect ration you have to re-encode.

[Digifreak]

Quite frankly, unless your TV is really small, I can't understand why you want the full screen version over the widescreen. Once you realize how much is lost on the sides when cropping to eliminate letterboxing, you will never want a full screen again. I think I speak for a majority of forum visitors when I say that the best viewing is in full theatrical aspect. Plus, as you may have noticed we are gradually moving toward widescreen TVs and 4:3 TVs with widescreen mode. When you watch a full frame movie on your widescreen TV you will now have annoying bars (usually gray on newer TVs) on the sides of the screen to keep aspect.

[herbapou]

"If you wana change the aspect ration you have to re-encode."

Not true in this case...


If your original DVD is flag 16:9 letterbox I know what to do. Most of the NTSC DvD's are flag 16:9 letterbox in the header line of the main movie, even if they are anamorphic. This info is only used by the standalone DVD players to tell them how to output the movie to the TV. 16:9 letterbox means it will show in 16:9 on both 4:3 and 16:9 tvs

Just edit aspect ratio parameter with IfoEdit: find the line where you see the ratio for the main movie ifo/vob and double click on it.

Check the 16:9 PS & LT

The movie will now display in 4:3 on 4:3 TV's and 16:9 on 16:9 TV's. If you want to see the movie in 16:9 on a 4:3 tv, you will have to "unzoom" it to 50% if its 1.85:1 If its 2.35:1, even if you reduce it to 50%, you will still miss parts of the screen.

Keep in mind its only a zoom, you wont see the left and right part of the screen rectangle. If all the action take's place on the side of the screen, you may end-up watching an empty background in some scenes.

I strongly suggest you buy a DvD with zoom features instead and encode your DVD`s with the same ratio parameters has the originals.