Panasonic E50 can't record widescreen on DV-R?

[panae50]

Just bought the unit. Instruction says widescreen record only on DV-RAM and pan-and-scan on DV-R. Can this be true? Anyway around this?

[FulciLives]

Hello

Actually it WILL record a 16x9 input but the DVD-R will be flagged as having a 4:3 source. What that means is when you play the DVD on a 4:3 television the DVD player will not know that the disc is 16x9 and will not resize the image, making everyone very tall and skinny!

However, if you watch it on a 16x9 widescreen television, then it will appear normal. This applies to both a true 16x9 sized display as well as a 4:3 TV that has a 16x9 compression mode (not too many though have that feature).

If you have a DVD recordable drive on your computer you could rip the DVD-R to your computer's HDD with DVD Decrypter using FILE MODE and make sure you select ALL FILES. Then you can edit the IFO file and change the 4:3 flag to 16x9 (there are programs that allow you to do that such as IFOEdit). You can then use a program called ImgTools (the "classic" version seems to work best) to turn your ripped DVD files into a disc image. Then burn the image to a DVD-R or DVD+R (whatever your recordable drive in the computer is) using DVD Decrypter.

Please note that ALL of that software is freeware/shareware so cost is no biggie ... assuming you have a DVD recordable on the computer.

Anyways, as you can imagine, changing the FLAG to 16x9 will correct playback on a 4:3 television.

I know this software can either be downloaded from this site or the doom9 website. I think doom9 also has a guide for IFOEdit (which I've never used but if all you need to do is change that flag from 4:3 to 16:9 it can't be all that hard).

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

PLEASE NOTE
This is only if the source is a 16x9 enhanced source. If the source is a simple 4:3 image that is widescreen then you won't have any trouble with it being widescreen.

[panae50]

Wow, FulciLives, thanks so much! Makes me feel better that I didn't mess up and bought the wrong recorder. Will try those tools you mentioned. Thanks again.