4:3 menus being stretched and cropped by dvd player

[Faken]

Hello everyone,

I have a DVD that my friend an I created that has a menu system in 4:3 NTSC. However when we play it on a dvd player (tested on 3 different ones, Magnavox, Curtis, and Sony) we end up with varying results.

First the Magnavox dvd player outright refuses to play the disc saying the media is not playable.

The Curtis dvd player decides to stretch all the menus into 16:9 and then crop and pillerbox it to 4:3. However it plays the videos as they should be (16:9 displayed as 16:9, though letter and pillar boxed, as expected, and 4:3 videos pillarboxed).

Finally the Sony player stretches the menus to 16:9, plays the 19:16 videos full screened and zoomed in (nice but not exactly what i expected) and 4:3 videos stretched to 16:9 (again, not allowing me to revert it to normal).

We authored the DVD menus using 720x480 NTSC.

Any idea what is going on?


Edit: The disc was authored using Adobe Encore and burnt using Imgburn.

The disc works properly when viewed on a PC.

(corrected the menu resolution)

[guns1inger]

Authored how and with what ?

[usually_quiet]

What program did you use to author the DVD and what program did you use to burn it to disc?

[Faken]

Ahh sorry, the disc was authored by Adobe Encore and burnt to disc using Imgburn.

The disc plays perfectly fine on a PC.

[usually_quiet]

The reason I asked about the program used to burn is that some DVD players might not read a disc correctly if it was burned improperly.

740 x 480? Do you mean 704 x 480 or 720 x 480?

[Faken]

We burnt a test disc using Adobe Encore itself, it gave me the same results.

The menu resolution was 720 x 480, sorry I was wrong.

[usually_quiet]

I don't use Adobe Encore and haven't ever had anything like this happen with discs I have authored. I don't have a clear idea of what is wrong, but it seems as though the aspect ratio is mismatched somewhere.

If it's a motion menu, did you use Mediainfo or GSpot to check that the video you used had an aspect ratio of 4:3?

Did you organize your video into different title sets according to the aspect ratio? Aspect ratios should not be mixed within a title set.

[Faken]

Well, everything was rendered into 4:3 using Sony Vegas (thus the wide screen ones got letter boxed). We imported the separate audio and video files into Adobe Encore and created the menu system in there and built a final product. Everything is 4:3 as viewed from a technical standpoint (which is why i was surprised when the Sony player detected and cropped the video to proper wide screen).

The entire DVD should be in 4:3 (but ill go back and check). On the PC it plays perfectly and exactly as intended.

The DVD players I tested it on ranged from "oh, hey look what i found in the garbage" to fairly high end.

We wanted something that conformed to the DVD standard and worked on all DVD players but what we found was the higher end the DVD player, the better the compatibility with the PC sitting at the top.

[usually_quiet]

There are aspect ratio flags in the video itself as well as aspect ratio flags in the IFOs. Players can use either one to decide how to display video.

Look at all the VOBs with Mediainfo or GSpot and all the IFOs with IfoEdit to see if the aspect ratios match. IfoEdit should also show "(4:3) (pan-scan & letterboxed)" as attributes for all the menus.

You should also check to see that the DVD player's TV aspect ratio is set for the aspect ratio of the TV you are using, and the TV is set to "Just Scan" (or equivalent) so as not to override the aspect ratio of the video.

If none of this helps, I'm out of ideas.

[Edit]One more thing... IfoEdit should show "(not specified perm.display)" as an attribute for 4:3 video.