Stargate DVD conversion - 4:3 V 16:9 - cant seem to get it right...

[cbdude]

Yo.
I have ripped a bunch of stargate SG1 to the hard disk and now want to convert it to avis or svcd, - whatever.... It doesnt matter which as Im experiencing the same problem no matter what I convert with.

When I convert them using either DVDX or AOA (an excelent utility by the way) if I select an angle that looks right on the computer screen (720x480) it looks all squished when I pipe it through the PC into the TV- a new 50" WS flatty (unles I set the screen size to 4:3). - and vice versa... If it looks good on the TV (widescreen 720x576) it looks weird on the PC.

Now I know that depending on the DVD the pixels can be anamorphic, which (correct me if wrong) means they can stretch to suit either 4:3 or 16:9. Is something here the problem?? The DVD files I have seem to play nice with the TV screen set to any size

I have tried ripping them at all the standard angles with no way to make the picture look good in both the PC and the TV. Normaly I wouldnt care as I'm only going to watch them on the TV but its damn annoying because I've never had to contend with this before.

thanks in adv,. for any advise...

thanks

[midders]

Set the screen resolution on your PC to a widescreen ratio when using the TV as a monitor. If you then play your videos in fullscreen mode they should have the correct aspect ratio.

One other thing to watch out for is that some media players ignore the PAR/DAR flags in divx (avi) files and derive the aspect ratio solely from the pixel dimensions (i.e. assumes square pixels all the time). If you use VLC media player there is an option in the Video menu to set the DAR manually if you have any problems.

Slainte

midders