Changing a DVD's Aspect Ratio

[soneman]

I would like to change the aspect ratio on a full screen 16:9 DVD I have to full screen 4:3.

The problem is that I still have a couple of 4:3 CRT TVs in my home and whenever I try playing a full screen 16:9 DVD on it, the picture appears as though it has been squeezed from the sides and the people look tall and skinny.

From my own experiences, a full screen 4:3 DVD does not suffer from the same problem when playing it back on a 16:9 TV.

So with this in mind, I would like to change the aspect ratio from full screen 16:9 on the original DVD to full screen 4:3 onto another DVD. So one of the DVDs would be in 16:9 and the other DVD in 4:3, same film, two discs but different aspect ratios.

How do I go about doing this? Is encoding required and which software do I need to change the aspect ratio?

[KBeee]

There should be an option on your DVD player to let it know what kind of display device it will be outputting to.
If your DVD player is connected to a 4:3 TV, then 4:3's the option to go for.

[tomlee59]

I agree that the easiest solution is to let the monitor do the work.

To change the AR by itself is easy, but if you also want to crop a widescreen film down to 4:3, then that involves editing and reencoding.

If you just want to set the AR flag to see what happens, you can use DVDPatcher or some similar tool to do that. Changing the flag merely directs the player to output a different AR. If you like the result, great. But it will not be the same as cropping.

[jman98]

You can rip, use IFOEdit to change the aspect ratio, and then re-burn, but man, that sounds like an awful lot of work. If 16:9 doesn't look right on your TV, it's probably an issue with your DVD player. The output may be set incorrectly. It may just be a case that all you have to do is change the video output setting in your DVD player. Or buy a better player that doesn't screw up 16:9 displays.

[guns1inger]

You do not have your DVD players set up correctly is the short answer. Set them up the right way, and you will not have any issues.

(OK, not 100% true. I have some discs at home - commercial discs - that have 1.66 material encoded as 16:9 and the idiots who mastered it resized the footage to fill the 16:9 frame. This footage gets distorted no matter what you do)

[fritzi93]

I have some discs at home - commercial discs - that have 1.66 material encoded as 16:9 and the idiots who mastered it resized the footage to fill the 16:9 frame.

Interesting. Never run across one of those.

But there are some early DVDs that were done as LB 4:3, and they won't display properly on a 16:9 TV. (Home Alone, for instance). DVDRB is handy for those: Options -> AVS Options -> Advanced (Expert) Options -> Convert from LB 4:3 to 16:9 -> Apply to All.

But in the OP's case, yeah, check the DVD player settings.

[guns1inger]

These were some Dario Argento movies from the 80/90's (Phenomena and Stendahl Syndrome). I was able to get around it by using the various zoom functions on the TV.

[soneman]

I've tried changing the Aspect Ratio setting to 4:3 Pan Scan and 4:3 Letterbox on my DVD Players but they have no effect on the picture for this particular DVD.

Other 16:9 DVDs I have I can change the Aspect Ratio from the DVD Player's Aspect Ratio setting and I can notice the change in the picture. But there is one DVD which won't allow me to change the 16:9 Aspect Ratio to a more sensible looking 4:3.

This is why I've asked about how I can change the Aspect Ratio myself and create a second DVD with the 4:3 picture.

Out of the programs recommended above, which is going to be the quickest and/or give the best result?

[guns1inger]

Start by confirming the disc is the problem. Post a screenshot of the clip showing the distortion, and a mediainfo output of one of the main VOBs.

This will tell us if the problem can be fixed easily - an update to the IFO files, for example - or if you will have to strip it down, resize it, re-encode it, and rebuild it.

[soneman]

The DVD in question is a personal recording of a live sporting event recorded from a Digital Satellite box.

The problem is that the Digital Satellite box has been set to output a 16:9 picture which is then feeding into a DVD Recorder which only records in 4:3. Hence the problem with the picture looking strange on 4:3 TVs.

Have tried using IfoEdit and what that does is it makes the picture look wider than it already is because it thinks that the picture is a 4:3 picture when in fact its not. Its definitely a 16:9 picture but programs like IfoEdit are reporting it as a 4:3 picture. Theres the problem.

From what I can see, it looks like the entire recording needs to be either cropped or have borders added to allow the 4:3 letterbox effect. None of these are realistic options as the recording is a sporting event which would look silly in letterbox mode and cropping would mean that I would be missing some of the picture.

I think I might just leave it as it is then and just live with it. I'll know better next time not to record a 16:9 picture from the Digital Satellite box but record in 4:3 then convert to 16:9 on the PC.

[guns1inger]

Try using IFOAR2WS to update the IFO files, and DVD Patcher to update the VOBS (if necessary - just changing the IFOs *might* be enough)

[edDV]

If you have a full height (tall and skinny) 720x480 MPeg2 recording that is exactly the way a 16:9 DVD recording looks as recorded. Import that into a DVD authoring program and define the asset as 16:9. Then define whether your DVD will be 4:3 or 16:9. If 4:3, the video will appear letterbox in a 4:3 TV and letterbox inside pillarbox (four black edges) on a 16:9 TV. If you set the DVD to 16:9 then it will appear full 16:9 on a 16:9 TV and letterbox on a 4:3 TV (if the DVD player is set for 4:3 out).

Or, you can chop off the sides off a 852x480 square pixel conversion to make 4:3 but that will appear pillarbox on a 16:9 TV.