Convert letterboxed widescreen to anamorphic widescreen?

[ziggy1971]

Hello all,

I bought a couple of DVD's with the impression that they were in widescreen format only to find that the aspect ratio is really weird (see attached image). I think it's called a letterboxed widescreen format, correct me if I'm wrong.

I would like to know if it's possible to convert the DVD's so that they look like the second image.



This is fine if I'm watching the movie on a 4:3 television, but it looks like crap when I see it on a 16:9 screen. If it is possible to change this, how do I do it without losing too much quality?

Thanx for now,
Cheers,
ziggy1971

[manono]

Hi-

Yes, it's possible, but it'll look pretty much like the one you have now zoomed in to fill the screen right to left. There's not enough resolution in a widescreen 4:3 DVD to look at all good on an HDTV, either zoomed in or reencoded for 16:9.

The easiest way to do it is to use the free version of DVD Rebuilder which has a 4:3->16:9 setting in it.

[guns1inger]

Simplest way is to use the zoom on the player or TV and let it do the work for you.

Next simplest way is to rip the DVD to your HDD, then use DVD Rebuilder to re-encode it. Under the advanced settings there is an option to convert letterbox to anamorphic.

Final option is to do the work by hand. Assuming NTSC, crop 60 from the top and 60 from the bottom, resize back to 480 and re-encode.

Before you embark on converting, make sure it is letterboxed (although the shots above sure look like it is)

[elgemo]

Hi, resume you in two words... AFTER EFFECTS.
Changing the aspect ratio maybe result in a very very widescreen image with the blacks bands as part of video too.
The hardest but effective way is to convert the movie to a video stream and zoom in with your own hands, for say in a way, in a widescreen project and render it, much people may thing I crazy but you gonna get a video with a perfect aspect to the screen and a looseless quality in comparison with other softwares.
For make it easy, I have good results too with a respectable quality using mpeg streamclip, maybe you prefer to do it on this way.
Good luck anyway.
Peace.

[jagabo]

With NTSC video in a 720x480 frame you want to crop 60 lines off the top of the frame, 60 lines off the bottom of the frame, resize the remaining 720x360 frame back to 720x480, then re-encode as MPEG2 for DVD.

[guns1inger]

After Effects is complete overkill for a simple task that can be done easily with free tools.

[ziggy1971]

Hi guys,

Thanx for all the info and different points of view of doing things, it's really appreciated. I do realize that the quality of the video won't be as good as the original, but for now it'll have to do. I've bought different versions of the same movie a couple of times only to find that they're displayed the same way.

Obviously I'm not the first person to come across this problem because some software seem to have functions to correct/alleviate this issue.

I'll try out the suggestions and see what I can come up with.

Once again, thanx a lot for the info guys,
Cheers,
ziggy1971