16:9 to 4:3 conversion - any ideas?

[davip]

Hello All,

Does anyone know if there's a relatively easy way to drop every 4th line of a DVD during ripping? My TV is 4:3 and most of my DVD's are 4:3 TV programmes, so rather than have my DVD player drop every fourth line of a ripped anamorphic DVD during playback, can I drop this during re-authoring? I rip my own discs to get rid of PUOs, menus etc.

The reason is (it seems to me) is that dropping every 4th line will make the resulting video files 25% smaller and require substantially less compression during the ripping process. If the TV is going to drop this line anyway, I would prefer this to applying high compression to the whole file. So, software that can make an anamorphic vob set into a 4:3 vob set that can be ripped back to dvd. Do-able?

thanks,
Dave

[manono]

Hi-
Does anyone know if there's a relatively easy way to drop every 4th line of a DVD during ripping?
Dumb idea.
...can I drop this during re-authoring?
Not during authoring, no. You can reencode the whole thing, resizing, adding black borders, and encoding for 4:3. Pretty easy, but only slightly less dumb, in my opinion. Don't you plan on ever getting a widescreen TV set? Believe me, once you get one and you play one of your converted 4:3 DVDs, you'll kick yourself for ever having dropped the resolution. Here's how you do it in AviSynth:

LanczosResize(720,368)
AddBorders(0,56,0,56)

Encode for 4:3. That's for NTSC. A PAL 16:9 to 4:3 conversion is slightly different.

[shon3i]

A PAL 16:9 to 4:3 conversion is slightly different.

LanczosResize(720,432)
AddBorders(0,72,0,72)