letterboxing and aspect ratio problems

[Meaghan]

(I'm not sure what forum to put this in. Please excuse me!)

Problem:
I'm having some difficulty in quality in burning my video to DVD. See, the video has a ratio aspect of 2.45:1 (864 x 352). The software I use is Cyberlink's PowerProducer 2 Gold and it automatically forces the video to full screen so the picture has a pinched, tall/skinny look. There is no black bars on top/bottom to keep the picture 'normal' or the proper size.

What I figure I have 3 options

i) I need to add black bars above and below the video (letterbox,eh?!?). I tried to see if VirtualDub can do this but I couldn't find anything. Any hints for software (preferably freeware) to physically change the video size
or
ii) I need to use a different DVD authoring program. Again, advice or hints for a program would be appreciated
and finally
iii) I'm tackling this backwards and need to be set straight once and for all.

Cheers!

[guns1inger]

If it was 1.78:1 then the solution would be very easy - create with PowerProducer, then use IFOEdit to set the AR flag to 16:9 so you got correct playback.

Virtualdub does indeed have the filter you need. It is the resize filter. It allows you to resize your main image, and if necessary add borders. What you need to do is work out what the new size should be. For that there a number of tools. I have written by own resize calculator, a link to which is in my sig (below). If you use avisynth then FitCD is a good option as it also produces an AVS file with the correct resize script in it.

I would then feed either the virtualdub or avs frameserved video to a dedicated encoder (I use CCE, but it is one of many options), then author the output for DVD.

Or try out VSO DivxtoDVD as a one click solution. No menus, but chapter stops and correct AR.

[manono]

Hi-

In what format is the video? AVI perhaps? And what's the framerate? 23.976fps, 29.97fps, or 25fps? Of course it has to be resized with the black borders added to make it complianr, either 720x480 for NTSC or 720x576 for PAL. And it has to be reencoded.

If it were I, I'd get the Resize/AddBorders from FitCD, frameserve with AviSynth, reencode with CCE, run Pulldown afterwards if originally 23.976fps, and then use MuxMan or something similar for authoring, or something a bit more elaborate, such as DVDAuthorGUI, if you want to make a menu for it. There are lots of other solutions, but we'll need more information. I don't know anything about Power Producer and what it does.

Edit: Gunsl1nger beat me to it.

[Meaghan]

Thank you so much.

Everything was extremely helpful. You guys rock =)