Widescreen software for the Adaptec Videoh! Device?

[leecotton]

Hello all. I'm new to this game and have got the Adaptect Videoh! media centre. This seems to work OK with the bundled software, but it doesn't support widescreen (16:9) capture. I've found that many software packages are incompatible with this device. Does anyone know of any software that will work with this capture device, and also allow me to capture in a widescreen ratio?

Thanks for any help!

[monzie]

Hold on a mo, are you capturing 16:9 broadcast TV (really 4:3)?

If its 16:9 broadcast then your problem is your lack of understanding of TV ratio's......a modern widescreen 16:9 TV automatically zooms a 16:9 broadcast movie (or cable etc) with borders to fill the screen GIVING THE IMPRESSION of a 16:9 borderless picture, but it is not REALLY a 16:9 (or above) picture at all...the Tv is just stopping you seeing the borders that exist in the original 4:3 picture by zooming it up.

Just use your remote control and set the TV to 4:3 or Superzoom or subtitle zoom can you now see the borders?

16:9 TV is NOT the same as WIDESCREEN TV as used by 16:9 enhanced DVD's..its still 4:3 (but with borders).

[thecoalman]

What's your source? Your own footage from a cam?

[leecotton]

My source is VHS tapes that are either pre-recorded in widescreen format, or one's I've recording in widescreen from TV. If I capture these, the captured picture is squished horizontally so that it fits the 4:3 ratio. If this is the actual source though, is there a way I can stretch the captured movie to return it to it's viewable ratio?

Thanks for any help!

[thecoalman]

If it's recorded as widescreen on VHS then the letterbox(black bars top and bottom) are part of the video (see the first reply from monzie). The only way you can remove them is to crop the video after you capture and reencode in 16:9 format.

[leecotton]

Hi, thanks for your reply, but I don't think that's the problem. I'm not getting any bars on the captured movie, just a horizontally squashed 4:3 image. Given that I don't have the software to specify a different capture size, is is possible to stretch the video file horizontally before I burn it to DVD, so that it wil display correctly on a widescreen TV?

[thecoalman]

You need software that supports 16:9. Widescreen video is the same resolution as regular, it's called anamorphic. You can have a 720x480 video that can be 16:9 or 4:3. This attribute can be found in the header of the video or the ifo file on DVD.

Either use authoring software that specifys that the video is widecreen of edit the ifo file with ifoedit.