Trouble converting widescreen AVIs to DVD format

[embreeb]

Whenver I convert a movie in AVI format that is in widescreen format, the picture gets stretched vertically to when I watch it on my standalone DVD player w/ my 4:3 TV. The original AVI and resulting VOB play in widescreen on the PC, but I haven't been able to get it to play correctly on my standalone player. Any ideas?

[Alex_ander]

To correctly resize it for DVD you have to find out whether your original movie is exactly 16:9 or something else (e.g. 2.35:1). For avi AR is determined just by pixel ratio, for DVD MPEGs - not (e.g. you may have noticed that 720x480 is 3:2, not 4:3).
There can be 2 cases:

1.Your video is actually 16:9, then you simply resize it to 720x480 and encode with 16:9 flags, this will guarantee correct AR on DVD.

2.You have something wider, like 2.35:1 (your numbers can be different), then you have to letterbox image by adding borders, then encode as 16:9. The numbers for 2.35:1 are 720x360 (with horisontal 60+60 borders this gives height 480). You can either add borders in AviSynth, or just resize to 720x360 and centre image in your encoder if it has that option, e.g. in CCE you can check 'For DVD' and your 720x360 image will be letterboxed inside 720x480 frame (check 16:9 before encoding). TMPGEnc Xpress also has a similar option.
What are the pixel numbers of your source video?

[guns1inger]

How are you converting ?
Do commercial widescreen discs work on your TV ?

You can encode widescreen one of two ways. Either is is letterboxed inside a 4:3 frame, with the full black bars encoded in it, or it is encoded as 16:9 with non-square pixels. It sounds like your is being encoded as 16:9, but the authoring isn't setting the flag properly.

You can use IFOAR2WS to set the DVD to 16:9 before burning.

If commercial DVDs also look like this then you haven't set up your DVD player correctly.

[stars]

Hi...

If you have an avi file where the video is in widescreen format you must see what aspect ratio you have.

Most common are 1.78:1 , 1.85:1 , 2.35:1 , 2.40:1

1.78:1 is fullscreen 16/9=1.77777777

So if the video have the size 720x404 its fullscreen. 720/404=1.78
If your video hieght is lower than 404 pixels you should add back bars att the top and below
so the total height will be 404 pixels.

After that resize the video to 720x576 (PAL) or 720x480 (NTSC)...

Encode the video to mpeg2 format...
When you author your DVD you must set the widescreen flag
for that VTS which will contain the videoclip, else the video will look stretched...

stars...

[embreeb]

Here is the video info for both AVIs that I am converting:

25.0 fps, 672*288 (2.21:1).

I am trying to use WinAVI to convert the files to DVD. I'm sure I should use something else, but it seems like the amount of work will be a lot, and the learning curve may be high. Any further advice is appreciated.

[DarrellS]

ConvertXtoDVD should automatically set the right size and create a PAL DVD for you. If you want a NTSC DVD ( which you probably want since you're in the USA ) then you'll have to choose force NTSC 29.97 fps.

You might be able to find the free version ( DivXtoDVD ) if you search the internet hard enough.

Never used Winavi but everyone around here says it's crap.

[stars]

Hi....

I did a small test on a widescreen avi clip converting it to DVD format...
A clip similar to yours...and it turned out fine...

You should try a program called DVDflick ...

You video source is considered to be a 16:9 source

Use the tab edit title to get the settings right...

do some tests and see what results will come out...


stars...

[embreeb]

Thanks for all the help -- DVDFlick worked great. It didn't take as long as I thought it would.