DVD aspect ratio

[SWBisbee]

I Have a dvd and I want to make a avi file for it, back cover of dvd box says WIDESCREEN Version and preserves the original 1.85:1 theatrical aspect ratio, my question is do I encode at 1.85:1 with a resolution of 592x320 or use a aspect of 1.78:1 with a resolution of 512x288 or can I encode both ways.

Thanks

[guns1inger]

You resize it to 720 x 480, with whatever black borders are required to make it fit, then encode it as 16:9 and author as 16:9

[manono]

He's making an AVI. I'll grant you it's a somewhat misleading thread title.

my question is do I encode at 1.85:1 with a resolution of 592x320 or use a aspect of 1.78:1 with a resolution of 512x288 or can I encode both ways.

You crop away the black bars and then resize based on the original DAR (either 16:9 or 4:3, in this case it sounds like a widescreen 4:3 DVD) Don't blindly make your resolution either 1.85:1 or 1.78:1. Make it what it is on the DVD. The information on a DVD box is sometimes wrong. I use Gordian Knot's Resolution Tab for opening the D2V and cropping and resizing to a good resolution, but there are other ways as well.

[guns1inger]

My bad - too many other things going on . . . . .

[SWBisbee]

Sorry for the bad title info, I put one of the vob file in GSpot And it gave me this:
GSpot reports it as | sar=1.500(3:2) | par=1.185(32:27) | dar=1.778(16:9), so where do I go from here?

Thanks

[guns1inger]

1.85 is the picture aspect ratio. AutoGK should do a good job of appropriately cropping the file for you. Just tell it the width you want, and it will work out the height.