Resizing stretched image to letterbox or widescreen

[adis68]

I have a DVD which I want to fix. It appears like the picture has been resized from the original (I think letterbox) to fit fullscreen. The result is a stretched picture. Can I resize to normal without losing quality?

[guns1inger]

The disk is fine. It is in a format known as Anamorphis, or widescreen enhanced, or 16:9 enhanced. The image has been encoded this way to capture more data. On a widescreen television, the picture will be compressed back down to normal height. If you are watching a standard format television, and seeing the picture stretched like this, then you have not set up your DVD player correctly. In the settings for your player you should find a setting aspect ratio. Yours should be set to Letterbox, not widescreen. The player will then do the conversion for you.

[adis68]

Thanks for the advice but unfortunately this is not the case. I changed the aspect ratio on my DVD player, nothing happens. Besides I forgot to mention the disk is a DVDR recorded on a set-top DVD recorder. It has menus similiar to the ones generated by Panasonic. So I am stuck with a deformed movie.

[Chaseskip]

Is it possible that the original recording was recorded in PAL (European),
and then converted to NTSC?

[adis68]

I had it shipped from Europe so it is still in PAL. My player plays PAL and NTSC, and I can easily make a NTSC copy on my Panasonic recorder because it is not protected. The problem is the stretched picture. And I am looking for a software which might help me do the resizing to correct height.

[guns1inger]

Tmpgenc has a resize function that will squeeze the vertical resolution down and fill out the balance with black to preserve the resolution. Have a look at the to begin with.

[adis68]

OK thanks. I will try that.

[adis68]

Hey Guns1nger,
I need some more help. I have TMPGenc DVD Author and TMPGenc Plus 2.5. I was planning to load the movie in TDA, use the "Save to HDD" function and have a big mpg file and work with it in TMPGenc. Can I do that? I tested TMGenc last night a little bit. I used the wizard's "clip frame" and then selected "center (custom)" option where you can actually resize the display manually and preview the outcome. My question is will TMPGenc handle a whole movie and what do I have to do so I do not lose audio. I tested the output mpg file in winDVD and Windows Media Player and I had no audio.
I would really appreciate your help.

[thecoalman]

Widescree is a attribute, you can have have a 720x480 in either 16:9 or 4:3. This information is in the header file of the video or the ifo file on the DVD. The videos on your DVD will be either flagged as 4:3 or 16:9, the DVD player will adjust the aspect ratio as needed. Using DVD Workshop I can have both 16:9 and 4:3 on the same DVD and have them display properly. Apparently your video has been flagged as 4:3.

You need software that supports 16:9 or you can edit the ifo file.
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=242338&highlight=

[adis68]

This seems much easier but I am not familiar with ifoedit. Any particular guide I should check?

[thecoalman]

This seems much easier but I am not familiar with ifoedit. Any particular guide I should check?

Don't know, just know it's possible. I've never had to use it because all my video has the correct ratio to begin with.

[guns1inger]

I know that a lot of studio disks are not properly set. I have a 4:3 TV with 16:9 switching capabilities. A lot of major studio disks (Paramount is a big offender) do not switch correctly.

Do a search of the guides for Ifoedit. The first one I found was this

https://www.videohelp.com/guides.php?link=506

which seems to be a bit of a catch all lit of tips, including aspect ratio changes

[adis68]

So if I do the following modification in ifoedit the aspect ratio will change from "stretched" fullscreen to widescreen?

VTS_01_0.IFO (original)

Title Set (Movie) attributes:
Video: MPEG-2 352x576 (PAL) (PAL 625/50) (4:3) (not specified perm.display)

VTS_01_0.IFO (modified)

Title Set (Movie) attributes:
Video: MPEG-2 352x576 (PAL) (PAL 625/50) (16:9) (not specified perm.display)

I am also not sure if I should modify the "VTS_01_0.IFO" or the "VIDEO_TS.IFO" or both?