Widescreen MiniDV to DVD conversion

[mindracing]

I'm really new to this and could really do with some advice.

I have 8 hours of really important video that was recorded on a Sony MiniDV camera set to Widescreen.
I need to put it onto DVD and include clips in Powerpoint slides in the same widscreen perspective.

When I capture the video, (I've used Pinnacle Studio 8. Movie Maker and Video Edit Magic - all with the same result) the resulting AVI files are not in Widescreen and have a distorted picture. i.e. people are all a couple of feet taller.

When viewed on the Sony Camera the format is fine.

What do I need to do/use to end up with files that play in widescreen format or can I capture in non-widescreen? As long as I lose the distortion I'll be happy. Keeping the Widescreen at this stage would be a bonus.

All help much appreciated.

[sacajaweeda]

Try changing your aspect ratio setting from 4:3 to 16:9 when you encode.

[mindracing]

Thanks.

I've tried that already. The camera can't be chaged for playback and only Movie Maker has a 16:9 option on encoding but the resulting file is still not widescreen.

[daamon]

Hi mindracing,

I don't know if this will be of any use, but worth a try...

I transfer from my miniDV cam via firewire using Adobe Premiere 6.0 - When starting a new project, it gives the option of capturing in widescreen. I've never done it, but I'd guess it'd work OK.

Maybe your tools have something similar? I don't know coz I've not used any of them...

Sorry I can't be of more use. Good luck...

[energy80s]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with your captures. Widescreen recording uses the "anamorphic" principal, where the 16:9 image is compressed into a 4:3 frame, so everything looks tall and thin on a 4:3 display. This is the way DVD's are made. Edit everything as normal (keeping the "weird" aspect ratio) and once you are ready to encode to MPEG2, set the output resolution to 16:9. This will produce a proper 16:9 widescreen MPEG2 encode, that your DVD player will aspect correctly.

Your camcorder is doing the widescreen switching automatically, that's why it looks fine being played out from the camera, but odd everywhere else.

[mindracing]

Thanks for that - makes me feel a lot happier.

I'm not aware that the 3 packages I tried support Widescreen resolution.

Any idea what does?

[daamon]

Hi mindracing,

You could use your packages to do the editing, and save your project as DV AVI.

Then use a dedicated encoder (rather than one that's with your tools) to do the encoding. Three good ones are: TMPGEnc (I use this and know that you can set the encoding to do 16:9 - here's a good guide for TMPGEnc in general), Cinema Craft Encoder & Mainconcept MPEG Encoder.

I hope that helps, and works OK. I feel a little vindicated now...

[sacajaweeda]

I use CCE 2.5 and TMPGEnc and they both have it. What your authoring app does with the AR is another story though. DVDLab displays them correctly for me, but other apps like Spruce Up seem to just ignore them. I'll take the same 16:9 clip I did before in DVDLab that displayed correctly and then when I author it in Spruce Up it plays back in 4:3. Go figure.

[mindracing]

Thanks guys,

I already have a massive AVI file stored. Is this what you mean by 'Save projct as DV AVI' or is this something different?

The AVI files were captured using MovieMaker. I haven't done any editing.

[daamon]

Thanks guys

No problem.

I already have a massive AVI file stored. Is this what you mean by 'Save projct as DV AVI' or is this something different?

If you've done editing, you'd need to save the finished article. But you haven't done any so don't worry about that bit.

The AVI files were captured using MovieMaker. I haven't done any editing.

For DV AVI, you're looking at around 13Gb per hour of footage. As you've just captured using MovieMaker (saved straight into an AVI file), then it's probably what you need (it could be uncompressed AVI - makes no difference to the encoding).

Use either GSpot or AVICodec to get details of your AVI. A codec of 'dvsd" is DV.

Good luck...

[energy80s]

Just load your saved AVI into TMPG and set the output resolution to 16:9 and input to fullscreen. Make sure that your output frame size is 720 x576 and it should be OK.

[donpedro]

New version of Pinnacle Studio version 9 supports 16:9 WIDESCREEN editing and DVD Authoring.