what aspect ratio

[thatnoobiekid]

hi guys,

im new to dvd burning and was wondering what are aspect ratio for?
i have win avi and burned some dvd disc and i setted it at auto but when i played it on my dvd player the side of my movies were missing. what is 4:3 , 16:9 , auto? what should i set it for? Auto, 4:3 , 16:9???

[laspis59]

16:9 is for widescreen TV's if you haven't got one use 4:3

[guns1inger]

That's an over simplification. Both can be used for widescreen footage, and both can be used on 4:3 or widescreen TVs. Your player will take care of the stretching on a 4:3 TV if configured properly.

If you have a widescreen TV, always go widescreen. Some high-end TVs have good zoom facilities, but most look very poor.

If you have a 4:3 TV, then you can go eitherway. If your source is high quality and close to DVD res to begin with (assuming downloaded avi source here), then go 16:9 and future proof yourself - you will get a widescreen TV oneday. If the source is lower res or lower quality, stick with 4:3 as it requires less resizing during encoding.

[laspis59]

Good point guns1inger .I usually capture video at 4:3 but suppose its better to capture at 16:9.

Still learning.

[Ennio]

I think it is important to realise that real 16:9 authoring is possible if the source is anamorphic 16:9 video.

cheers

[guns1inger]

You can make it 'anamorphic' if necessary, either through manual resizing or through something like DivxtoDVD.

[akbor75]

at first, if the source video is not anamorphic, it's no use to make it so, cos it won't improve the quality.

but what i wanted to say, is this: you should not depend on the destination device, but on the source material.

[guns1inger]

If the source is of good quality, and the viewing device is widescreen, then often 16:9 encoding will produce a better quality outcome, even with the resizing, than using the zoom facility on the player or TV to fill the screen.

[akbor75]

who's talking about zoom?
what i mean is that i think you should watch the material as is, thus regarding how it was made and not regarding where you're gonna watch it on.

if the source is 'good quality' but the ratio doesn't fit 16:9, you should not resize/zoom, cos it's not meant to be that way.
if you get black bars you get black bars.
or do we mean different things here?

[guns1inger]

If the source is widescreen letterbox, and you author as 4:3, then playback on a widescreen TV will not only have the tradional letterbox bars top and bottom, but also vertical bars eitherside. Effectively you will be watching the film with borders all the way around, losing up to 50% of the screen area. To rectify this you have to zoom using the TV or player to at least fill to the sides. Encoding as 16:9 (if the material is suitable) removes this problem.

[thatnoobiekid]

sOOOoooOo im guesssing sticking with basics... 16:9 for widescreen and 4:3 for not widescreen(which is what i have). But if i have a good source with high quality i do not have to set it at 4:3 but at 16:9 if i wished . But again if i have a bad source with low quality i should set it to 4:3. BUt again again if i have a low source with low quality but the video was made for widescreen i should set it at 16:9 but i could set it to 4:3 if i wished we would not be good but not bad............ i think i got thiss.........

[guns1inger]

good, cos I got confused reading what you wrote . . .

[thatnoobiekid]

i have no idea wut i wrotee................... but yeaa ima stick with basics... 16:9 = widescreen ... 4:3 = ma crap ass piece square spongebob piece of shit... yaaa i thinks i gots it!! thanks everyone