Divx Certified dvd player won't recognize 16x9 aspect ratio

[maca]

Forgive me if this is addressed in some other thread, but I couldn't find it. I just bought a Philips DVR which is Divx Certified. It plays the files beautifully, but doesn't recognize 16x9. In other words, I have it hooked up to a 4x3 set at the moment, and instead of letterboxing the films down it just stretches the image to fill the screen, as it would if I had the player set for a 16x9 tv. It handles 16x9 dvds just fine, so I figure the problem must be in the divx file itself. But when I open the file in Gspot, it says it's tagged as 16x9. So why won't the player recognize it as such? Any ideas how I could do anything to the divx files to make the aspect ratio work? I'm stumped.

[jagabo]

Does the frame size have a 16:9 ratio or the DAR is set to 16:9? You can use MPEG4Modifier to change PAR/DAR values.

Current Philips Divx/DVD players like the 5960 and 5982 respect the MPEG4 PAR/DAR settings.

You implied that is the way you have it set, but just in case, check that the recorder is set up to output 4:3.

[maca]

Yes, the frame size is 16x9, and Gspot identifies it as such. And the recorder is set to play on a 4x3 screen, which means it should squash down the movie and letterbox it. But it doesn't. It does this just fine on dvds which are 16x9, though. I'll try fooling around with the MPEG4Modifier and see what I can come up with. Thanks.

[maca]

Frustrating. If the divx is widescreen, the player will compress it down and letterbox it a tiny bit, but not nearly enough. And it does this whether I have the player set for a 16x9 tv or a 4x3 tv. So if I'm watching a widescreen divx on a 16x9 set, everyone's too short and fat; if I'm watching it on a 4x3 set, everyone's too tall and skinny. And this thing is supposed to be "Divx certified". What the hell does that mean if it can't even play the correct AR?