4:3 Letterbox on a widescreen TV - HELP

[Mr Zippy]

I am trying to convert some video footage to DVD, it's encoded as 4:3 letterboxed widescreen, how do I get this to display correctly on my widescreen TV?

I thought you set DVDMaestro to 16:9 Letterbox, but this did not work, the DVD player treated it as anamorphic widescreen resulting in a horizontally stretched picture with the black bars still there.

How do I get the the Letterbox widescreen to display correctly, ie. stretched horizontally and vertically to fill the screen widescreen 16:9 TV?

Any ideas?

I thought the following applied in DVDMaestro:
4:3 - for standard 4:3 video
16:9 LB / PS - use for anamorpic widescreen
16:9 Letterbox - used for letterbox widescreen
16:9 Pan & Scan - anamorphic widescreen with motion vectors for pan&scan


Thanks

Neil

[mpucoder]

It is 4:3, with letterboxed set (means the matte bars are already there, ready for 4:3 screens). This is NOT the same as auto-letterboxed, which is a 16:9 attribute (means it's "anamorphic" and may be letterboxed in order to fit on 4:3 screens)

Here is a better description
4:3 intended for display on 4:3 screens, displays fullscreen
option: may be marked as letterboxed, widescreen displays may then stretch the image.

16:9 intended for display on 16:9 displays (anamorphic)
options: LB may be resized and matted for 4:3 display as letterboxed (auto-letterbox)
PS may be cropped using P/S offset for 4:3 display (auto-pan/scan)

I'm not sure where in Maestro this gets set, but I can show you the video attribute bits for manual setting with IfoEdit http://www.mpucoder.com/DVD/ifo.html#vidatt

[Mr Zippy]

The aspect ratios I listed are are on the bottom of the timeline box in DVDMaestro, there is not one for 4:3 marked as letterboxed as you suggested.

So how do I do this?

I was also looking to use the new DVDlab authoring program as that allows direct SVCD to DVD comversion, that only has auto, letterbox, pan-scan.

I know this is possible, and I don't really want to mess with IFOedit, it's not the most friendly of programs.

If you had some letterbox widescreen M2V video files how would you author to DVD?

I know it can be done as I have a couple of letterboxed DVDs, and they play correctly on my widescreen TV without any bars.

Thanks

Neil

[auenf]

you will have to reencode the m2v thru an avisynth script to stretch the video from letterboxed to animorphic.

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=50384

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=49971

Enf...

[Clown shoes]

I would imagine if you just want it to play back at correct ratio, you only need to leave Maestro's settings on 4:3 as that is your movies size including letterboxing and then zoom in on the TV when you playback. If you want the DVD to be anamorphic and stretch to fit then you will need to do as Auenf said and re-encode at a different ratio without the letterboxing. Hope this is of some help and not just stating the obvious (probably the later)

Clown Shoes

[mpucoder]

What he wants is to mark the video as what it is. I can do this in IfoEdit, but the question is "how is letterboxed 4:3 denoted with Maestro". I don't have access to Maestro atm, or I would have tried it. 4:3 letterboxed is supported, and if marked properly can be viewed on 16:9 displays full screen.

@MrZippy - it really is not that hard with IfoEdit. Author the DVD as 4:3, then open the movie's ifo with ifoEdit, click on VTSI_MAT, scroll down to location 200, double click it. There you will see all the attributes, in the lower right corner is the one you want to turn on - Letterboxed (top&bottom cropped). Check it, and save the ifo file.

[Mr Zippy]

@mpucoder Thanks I will try that, DVDMaestro does not have a 4:3 letterbox setting.

Hopefully features like this will be added to DVDlab which looks to be a promising authoring program for $99.


@auenf - if the video was not already MPEG 2 I would consider reencoding, but the SVCD video is suitable for DVD and players fine on my DVD player.


Thanks everyone, I'll have a play tomorrow with that, I'm hoping to move some old 4:3 letterbox SVCD to DVD as painlessly as possible using the DVDlab authoring program.

Neil