Converting a 16:9 video captured at 4:3

[astern]

Is there a piece of software that can essentially convert a "squashed" video that was captured as a standard 4:3 image but was actually a 16:9 image. The result of whcih is that the width of the image is squashed.

Is there some software that can convert the image to the correct format?

[Forum Troll]

Is it an MPEG or AVI file? There are utilities that can modify the bit or flag that tell programs to play the file back as anamorphic...

[guns1inger]

restream can do this for mpeg, mpg4modifier can do it for avi. Not all players respect the flag in avis though.

[astern]

The files are uncompressed AVI.

Thanks

[guns1inger]

What are your plans for this file ?

If it is DVD, then simply encode them as 16:9 and author as 16:9 and they will play back correctly. If the end result is compressed avi encoding, resize to 16:9 accordingly (NTSC resize height to 630, for PAL, resize to 432 - both with a 720 width)

[astern]

Ideally, I need to have a file that is in the same uncompressed format but has resized the image so that it is displayed as anamorphic. Therefore I need to squash the top and bottom of the image so that they are back in proportion,

[guns1inger]

It is anamorphic, hence the stretched image. What you want is either letterboxed, or letterboxed without the matte. Can you use g-spot (2.52beta) to determine exactly what you have, and preferably post a screenshot here.