Handbrake - ripping a DVD with various aspect ratios

[Ygramul]

I have a DVD that has chapters in both widescreen and 4:3. I'm trying to encode it to mp4 using x264. I want all the chapters to have the same resolution so I can merge them into one big file.

My question is: is it possible to encode a 4:3 chapter to widescreen (with those black bars on the sides)? I don't want any stretching. It's either impossible with Handbrake or I'm still missing something, because I've tried all kinds of options to no avail.

[aedipuss]

usually it's done the other way, the 16/9 is encoded with black bars top and bottom. you might try using vidcoder it may be a little easier and it still uses handbrake to do the encoding.