Need HELP - authoring & burning dv to widescreen dvd (16

[cwon221]

I have a Sony HC40 and I used the 16:9 feature when I shot a video on tape for testing. I used Nero 6.3 to capture the video to an avi file and used Roxio Power Edition to edit it ... Then I used Nero again (using the 16:9 option) to create a DVD .. I played the avi file on my PC and it showed the 16:9 aspect ratio .. but when I played it on my 4:3 tv using my dvd player, the picture has black margin around the 4 sides. I don't know what I did wrong.
Can something please give me some advice how to shoot my video in 16:9 and burn a dvd to play 16:9 on TV (with only black margin on top and bottom of the 4:3 tv screen - widescreen)?

Any help would be much appreciated ..
Thanks

[toshkin78]

Firstly I had a quick look at the model in question its not a true 16:9 DVC
Sorry but your in the same boat as many people including myself.

I will begin with a quick run down of the various 16:9 features available in many of the 4:3 digital video cameras.

16:9 (Cinema) : this feature adds black bands to both the top and bottom of the screen during recording. During play back on Wide Screen tvs the top and bottom lines are removed and the picture ratio becomes 16:9. on 4:3 tvs the picture is seen as if you were watching a 16:9 movie letter boxed with black lines above and below. (Don't even bother.)

16:9 (SQUEEZE): this way the object that you are shooting is viewed in the view finder and standard tv to be elongated and only works if watching on a wide screen tv as it will expand the image to fit the screen without distortion.

Digital Wide(D.WIDE) : this is the equivalent of using a 0.7X wide angle conversion lens, but it extends the maximum optical zoom wide angle range (only suitable for shooting in confined spaces such as a small room).

Poor mans 16:9:How its done.

1. Shoot in 16:9 (SQUEEZE) ** Caution always zoom out a little more as the image will be cropped in letterbox mode
2. Before even capturing to your computer make sure that the project settings are set to 16:9 aspect ratio in capturing software.
3. Export to MPEG 2 (DVD)
4. In the dvd authoring software make sure that it has the option 16:9 DVD project template and select it.
5. Create your master piece and burn to dvd.
6. if you did everything right in steps 1-5 it should result in displaying on conventional tvs in 16:9 letterboxed with black lines above and below just as you would watching in the cinema, and on a wide screen tv it would show the entire image uncropped.

*** Note the quality is never going to be as good as capturing it on a 16:9
Digital video camera

There is an alternative you could purchase an anamorphic adapter that captures the full 16:9 image onto the 4:3 chip, utilizing every pixel for a full resolution image. Be prepareed to cough up the a bit of money.
In my case money well spent.

http://www.centuryoptics.com/products/dv/index.htm

then select in the drop down list 16:9 widescreen adapter

Cheers Toshkin!!!

[cwon221]

OK .. thanks .. I've finally done it .. but can't explain it .. below are my findings:
1. Used Nero 6.3 to capture the tape to a avi file
2. Used Roxio Videowave 5 Power Edition to edit the avi file and
created a mpg2 file
3. Used TMPGEnc Plus to create (encode ? .. not sure of terminology)
a m2v file with 16:9 aspect ratio
4. Used TMPGEnc DVD to create (Author?) a video file (VOBs)
5. Finally used Nero 6.3 to burn DVD


Seems like a lot of trouble .. but that's the only way that I can get it done .. any easier way ? Please advise

Thanks
Cheuk