Aspect ration problems when converting AVIs to DVD using WinAVI

[embreeb]

I have been having trouble when I convert AVIs to DVD format using WinAVI -- no matter what settings I use, the result is always a 4:3 aspect ratio. I have some TV shows and movies that are AVIs, and I want to watch them on my standalone DVD player, but I can't figure out how to preserve the aspect ratio. I tried using IFOEdit to change the aspect ratio to 16:9, but when I unchecked the "Automatic Pan&Scan" box in the "Static" section of the Video Attributes, I get the error "IFO Endsector does not match the file size" when editing the VTS_X_X.ifo file. I've only tried editing the aspect ratio for one movie so far, and it only had one VTS file. Anyway, I would greatly appreciate any help you can give me.

[guns1inger]

It saddens me the number people wgho have paid over good money for this product, then come here looking for help because it doesn't do as it says it will. It is even sadder when there are plenty of free alternatives that work much better.

Before giving up with IFOEdit, what resolution does the IFO think your video is ? Only full/cropped D1 supports 16:9.

In the mean time, complain the WinAVI support (just for a giggle - don't expect any real answers) and then ask for your money back. Look into the free alternatives that do work.

[embreeb]

I don't know what IFOEdit read the aspect ratio originally, but now it shows 720X480, 16x9 (letterboxed). When I use AVICodec, the orginal AVI file shows to be 608x256 (2.21:1). Don't know if that answered your question or not, but I will re-convert from AVI to DVD again and see what IFOEdit shows before I manually change it. Also, what other free alternatives are there? I have tried using VirtualDub and BeSweet to convert PAL files, but the audio always gets out of sync and I haven't been able to get it to stay in sync, even when I adjust the audio delay.

[guns1inger]

I always

a) demux the audio from the avi if it is AC3, or save it as uncompressed wav if it is MP3. No sync problems.

b) use avisynth to frameserve at the correct resolution to CCE for encoding. I also filter if to remove compression blocks and sharpen it to compensate for the resize, all in the one script I encode as 16:9 with no problems.