4:3 header on a widescreen DVD ??!!

[Zetti]

Hi all,

I extracted the M2V stream from a comercial 16:9 widescreen DVD; using DVDDecrypter,

Weirdly, both Restream and DVD2AVI says it's 4:3

I don't have a WS TV, so I can't check its behaviour, anyway, it plays propelrly letterboxed (black bars at bottom and top) at my regular 4:3 TV, I am very confused, as it's a WS disc, shouldn't the header be 16:9 ??

I've done a test in RW media setting its header as 16:9, it goes bad, 2X WScreened, everybody is fat and small (4 black bars);

Is it possible that Decrypter has changed its header wrongly when extracting ?

Thanks,

Zetti

[sterno]

Some widescreen DVDs (mostly older ones) are actually encoded as 4:3 with letterboxing instead of 16:9 anamorphic. It sounds like you have one of those.

[gshelley61]

Perhaps it is a letterboxed widescreen DVD (not anamorphic). There were plenty of these released up until a couple of years ago. Disney was notorious for this as many of their widescreen DVD's were 4:3 letterbox rather than take advantage of the higher resolution anamorphic format.

[FulciLives]

I agree ... sounds like a 4:3 widescreen DVD that is not "anamorphic enchanced for 16x9 widescreen televisions".

Doesn't happen much these days with new DVD releases but it still does happen from time to time and of course there are many "older" releases done 4:3 WS that are still available.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[Zetti]

Thanks friends for replying,

I wonder : HOW WOULD IT SHOW ON A TRULY WS TV

I don't have a WS to check;

Zetti

[gshelley61]

Some of them look OK on a widescreen display when digitally zoomed with either the DVD player or the TV (if they have zoom function, that is). Like all DVD's, it depends on how good the film to video transfer was, and if the MPEG encoding was done properly. Fixed pixel RPTV displays (DLP, LCD) are not as forgiving as direct view CRT's and plasmas are, so it also depend on what type of widescreen TV you use.

[guns1inger]

It is also possible (and allowable under the DVD spec) to have mixed ARs (aspect ratios) on a single disk. Therefore it is entirely possible to have a 4:3 menu with a 16:9 movie. This format is more friendly to the 4:3 TV crowd (as they can play it letterboxed) while not penalising the WS crowd come movie time.

[Baldrick]

please post commercial dvds to dvdr in this forum.

[Zetti]

please post commercial dvds to dvdr in this forum.

Baldrick, I started this forum on the "DVD Authoring" section, which seems apropriate, has any moderator changed it to DVD-DVDR

As far as I realize, it fits on the authoring one, as it's related to the way comercial films are authored;
Shouldn't you move it back to the apropriate forum ?

Returning to the matter, I'm really surprised on this header "mistake", the menu also appears letterboxed, so it's an all WS movie with 4:3 header;

Thanks to all;

Zetti

[Dj Petro]

you could see the effects in your software DVD Player. If it is WS or 4:3 then it will display that way in the windowed screen of the player.... right?

_