multiple aspect ratios on one DVD?

[towtruck]

Hello all

I have four titles encoded w/HCenc. 1 was encoded with the correct aspect ratio of 4:3, while the other 3 were incorrectly encoded in 16:9. I decided to try to live with it.

In the authoring step, Gui for DVD author bombed when set to use muxman. When set to use DVDauthor, it worked, but a preview suggests that the third (and correctly encoded title) is now also squashed to 16:9.

All of which leads me to wonder if there is something I can do to 'un-squash' the incorrectly encoded titles w/o re-encoding (I've deleted the source *.avi)

Any practical advice or theory anyone can give me is greatly appreciated.
Thank You!

P.S.
The source is from a MiniDV camera recording in aspect ratio 4:3.

[TBoneit]

Just a stray thought but have you tried using DVDPatcher to reflag the MPGs to the proper aspect ratio? from the page for it under tools "Change MPEG2 headers such as aspect ratio, resolution and more."

https://www.videohelp.com/tools?toolsearch=DVDPatcher&Submit=Search&s=&orderby=Name&hit...uthorfeatures=

[jman98]

Yes, it is possible to mix aspect ratios on the same DVD. You'd be surprised at how common this is. For example, the DVDs of the NBC show "The Office" have the episodes in 16:9, but the extras are all in 4:3. I believe that to do this each PGC must have only one aspect ratio in it, so you'd need a bare minimum of 2 PGCs to do this - one for 16:9 and another for 4:3.

If you have authored DVD on your PC and not in ISO format (rip it if it's in ISO format), use IFOEdit to open the various IFOs and when you find the one for the 3rd title you can use IFOEdit to change it from 16:9 to 4:3. I don't remember the mechanics of how this is done, but I remember that IFOEdit will definitely do it as I had to use it to fix an incorrectly authored DVD once. A search on guides to using IFOEdit should help. PGCEdit might be able to do this easier, but I am just guessing. I know for a fact IFOEdit can do it.

If you only have one PGC in the authored video, I really have no idea if you can possibly fix this. You'll have to create another PGC and that probably means re-authoring.

[tinker]

To make a little correction. There is no problem to mix aspect ratio on one DVD, but they have to be in their own VTS not PGC, (4:3 in one, 16:9 in other), which I think the software you have will not allow you to do.
You can have a menu 4:3 and Title(movie) 16:9 in one VTS, but not Titles.

[borax]

GfD allows this. You just have to activate 'Use Titlesets' in the default project settings. But the aspect ratio for the titles itself should be correct, otherwise it can lead to such a 'bad' behavior (If the aspect ratio is not constant within a title).

[towtruck]

Thank you everyone for replying, and please forgive for being so long to say 'Thanks'

Right after I posted originally, I had the though that the first title seemed to set the aspect ratio for the whole DVD, i.e. if putting a 4:3 title after a 16:9 title would make the 4:3 title display in 16:9, it might work the other way around. I created a short dummy title in 4:3 because I didn't want to change the order of the titles, and re-authored with the new 4:3 title in front. Now all the title display in 4:3 (on the computer at least, still have to try stand-alone), which is what I wanted.

Which makes me wonder... Is there some way to take an *.m2v encoded in one aspect ratio and somehow convert it to another????

TBoneit: I did try DVDPatcher to set all 16:9 flags to 4:3, but the result seemed to be an even greater stretching out. Strange. Seems the tool is appropriate for a different situation, but I don't know enough about that.

Jman98: Also tried running IFOEdit, but I couldn't figure out what I needed to change.

[manono]

Which makes me wonder... Is there some way to take an *.m2v encoded in one aspect ratio and somehow convert it to another????

Yes, as already mentioned DVDPatcher can do it, as can ReStream.

I did try DVDPatcher to set all 16:9 flags to 4:3, but the result seemed to be an even greater stretching out.

Which leads me to wonder if you didn't mess up something else somewhere along the line, a resize perhaps.

[towtruck]

Thank you manono!

For some reason I thought DVDPatcher only applied to DVDs. Maybe it should be called MPEG2Patcher. In any case, I converted the first 16:9 title to 4:3 and it looks great! This seems to be the ultimate remedy for my problem; now I don't need that first dummy title, can use muxman if I want, and will have greater confidence in the result.

On quickie. I used 'Patch entire file', becuase that seemed pretty logical in this case. When would you patch the first header only?

Thanks again!

[borax]

...When would you patch the first header only?
If only the first few frames are wrong. This happens often, if you record 16:9 material, but the first few frames are still send as 4:3 by the broadcaster. In this case it is not necessary to path the whole movie as only some frames (first GOP) are wrong.

Another reason was the old version (1.6) of TDA. It has not accepted 'nonDVD' resolutions like 480x480. But it could be 'fooled' if the first header was set to 720x480 and reset after loading the stream in TDA.
BTW: MuxMan would not allow it.

[Alex_ander]

BTW: MuxMan would not allow it.

It does allow for muxing with patched GOP headers (tested yesterday on 544x576). Or do you mean it won't work on patching back between loading files and muxing? It is not necessary to do so, since DVDPatcher can do the reverse patching after muxing, in VOBs.

[borax]

Yes, it is possible, if you patch the whole movie. But the fast and easy way as possible with TDA doesn't work.

[Alex_ander]

But isn't patching whole file as fast and easy? It only takes 3 or 5 seconds per 1GB.