How to convert Fullscreen to Widescreen

[greenmetal]

Hello,

I have a "Full Screen" video in "DVD format" that I would like to convert into "Widescreen" format. Is there any program that will do this? I tried TMPGenc but it doesn't convert video in DVD format. TMPGenc is good for mpg, avi, etc.

Thanks,

Joe Green

[Baldrick]

Use vob2mpg and convert the mpg.

But why convert to widescreen? you need to cut the video to get it widescreen with correct aspect ratio.

[jman98]

I would not recommend that you follow Baldrick's advice. He is correct, but the problem is that while was you want to do is possible, it's not desirable. Your fullscreen video is missing information on both sides of the screen. That's what happens when widescreen is converted to fullscreen. There's no way to get that missing information back. Yes, you can even further cut the video at the top and bottom to fake it to look like widescreen, but even more of the video will be gone. Here's a crude ASCII diagram to show what you have.

Original/ Fullscreen/ Your proposal

xxxxxxxxx xxxxx
xxxxxxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
xxxxxxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
xxxxxxxxx xxxxx

See at each step how you lose video information? You don't really want to do this.

[manono]

Your fullscreen video is missing information on both sides of the screen. That's what happens when widescreen is converted to fullscreen.

While that may very well be what happened, from the information we have so far, it could just be a native 1.33:1 video. You can't draw the conclusion you did.

Yes, you can even further cut the video at the top and bottom to fake it to look like widescreen, but even more of the video will be gone.

And if it's native 1.33:1, then cropping off the top and bottom will mean information being lost only once, not twice.

And you're forgetting the other way to make it 16:9, by adding black to both the right and left sides to be able to encode for 16:9. What if, for example, he wants to encode this 4:3 source for 16:9 because he wants to integrate it into some already existing 16:9 footage? Then adding black to the sides would be the proper way to convert it to 16:9.

Maybe you're right. I don't know, but until more information is supplied, you're jumping to conclusions. Heck, even Baldrick said greenmetal shouldn't follow his suggestion. He was just answering the question explaining one way to do the job.