Aspect Ratio and TMPGEnc -HELP !!!!

[Nello_AU]

Hi,
Recently I took a DVD I burnt to a friends house who has a widescreen Plasma display.
Thinking that it was widescreen complient I was shocked to find it was in 4:3 format with black bars at the top and bottom. My friend had to zoom the plasma display.

I had until this time always believed that I had been configuring TMPGEnc correctly for both 4:3 and 16:9 displays because:
1 - I had set TMPGEnc to 16:9
2 - It looked fine on my 4:3 display (Black bars on top and bottom)

I have read every guide and I am very confused to say the least.
I think the following settings may be correct because the video looks stretched in TMPGEnc but displays correctly on 4:3

Details

GSpot reports the AVI file details
Size : 608x256 (2.38:1) [=19:8]
FPS : 25
NOTE: there are NO black bars on the top or bottom of the AVI

I now set TMPGEnc to MPEG2 with the following settings:

Video Tab
Size : 720 x 576
Aspect Ratio : 16:9 Display
Frame rate : 25 FPS

Advanced Tab
Source aspect Ratio : 4:3 625 Line (PAL)

Video arrange Method : Full screen (keep aspect ratio)

I still have to test this on a 16:9 display but even if it works I do not understand the 2 different aspect ratio settings.

Can anyone help to clarify this problem.

[Nello_AU]

Can anyone help please ?

[holistic]

GSpot reports the AVI file details
Size : 608x256 (2.38:1) [=19:8]

Sounds like 'Anamorphic video '
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/anamorphic/anamorphic235demo.html


Not owning a 16:9 WS television I watch my wide screen movies on my 46" 4:3 with the black bars. But even a 16:9 (which i believe is best suited to 1.85:1) will display black on "extra wide" (my words) ratio movies.

][

[Nello_AU]

Thanks Holistic.
That site seemed to confirm what I am doing is correct.

I should have said in my original post that on the Wide screen Display there was black top and bottom and left and right.

Still not sure what the 2 different aspect ratio settings in TMPGEnc mean however.