Wide screen (16:9) DV to Divx

[wayback]

I'm using a Canon Elura 100, which is your basic standard definition camcorder. In 4:3 mode, the DV files are 720x480 with a .889 pixel aspect ratio, producing a 4:3 display aspect ratio. Based on information provided here in the past, in the AVS file I crop 8 pixels off each side, and then resize the resulting 704x480 to 640x480. I understand that produces the exactly correct square pixel aspect ratio. I'm using Cedocida, Yadif and VirtualDubMod, if it matters.

But the camera also has a "wide" mode. The output from that is still 720x480, but now the PAR is 1.185, producing a display aspect ratio of 1.778 (i.e. - 16:9). So I'm wondering what the correct resize would be for DivX. Do I need to trim the sides before resizing? By how much?

Also, I remember from somewhere that resizing upward doesn't work very well. Is there a particular resizing plugin that would let me resize up to 852x480 with good quality? Or should I resize down to 720x404?

[poisondeathray]

another option is to encode as is (720x480) and use aspect ratio flag in divx or xvid , or use mpeg4modifier

[aedipuss]

resizing to 848 or 854 /480 is fine. the problem with that type of cam and "widescreen" mode is that it uses the same single tiny ccd to capture more pixels. it may turn out a bit soft no matter how you encode it.