Widescreen Not Letter Boxed on Normal Aspect TVs

Imperial Zeppelin · 18th November 2003, 23:56

Learned Colleagues:

I tried a search and came up blank.

Problem: I record in 16:9 on my Sony MiniDV camera. I go and do my editing with Pinnacle Studio8 which only "sees" 4:3 and render a DVD which I don't burn, yet. Pinnacle sets all the IFOs to 4:3 ratio and I manually go in with IFOEdit to change every instance of 4:3 to 16:9. I then burn the edited DVD using RecordNow. The resulting DVD plays fine on a widescreen TV, but on a 4:3 aspect TV, instead of seeing the full widescreen picture in the horizontal dimension with black bars top and bottom, I get a picture that's full screen vertical, resulting in clipping on either end of the picture.

Question: How do I edit the Pinnacle IFO files to get widescreen output on widescreen TVs and letterboxed output on 4:3 ratio TVs?

Easy question. I hope the answer is as easy.

Thanks in advance for the help.

Zep

mpucoder · 19th November 2003, 00:31

What you're seeing is "automatic Pan&Scan", what you want is "automatic letterboxed".
In the same places where you found the aspect ratio are two flags that allow/disallow auto-P/S and auto-letterbox. IfoEdit has a nice dialog box for editing this, just double click on the video attributes, and make sure "automatic letterboxed" is checked, and "automatic Pan&Scan" is not. If both are checked (the default) then the choice between letterboxing or Pan&Scanning the video is made by the player. Some players allow you to enter your preference in a setup screen.

Imperial Zeppelin · 19th November 2003, 18:16

Thanks, I'll try it tonight...

FYI my default was nothing checked; the IFOs said "unspecified." When I check the box they now say "letterboxed."

I guess the player on the normal aspect TV uses normal aspect as a default. The player on the widescreen TV was set by me with a widescreen default setting.

Thanks again,
Zep

fritzdis · 21st November 2003, 11:21

Since I'm not sure whether Pinnacle is where the mpeg2 video stream is encoded, I'm not sure if this applies or not:

The video stream itself has an aspect ratio flag that is separate from any settings in the ifo. If Pinnacle only sees your video as 4:3, then it may well set the aspect ratio in the video stream to 4:3. If this is the case, then your player may not display it letterboxed on a 4:3 TV even if you change the ifo and/or have the player set to letterbox.

To find out what the aspect ratio is set to in the video stream, just load a vob into DVD2AVI and press preview. It will display the aspect ratio set in the video stream in the statistics window.

If the video stream is set to 4:3, I believe you can fix it without any reencoding. Just extract the .m2v from the vobs and use Restream or some other tool to set the aspect ratio flag to 16:9. Then remux the new .m2v into the vobs with IfoEdit. Since you'd have only made minimal changes to the video stream, the remux should be perfect. Finally, also change the ifo settings to those stated by mpucoder.

Imperial Zeppelin · 22nd November 2003, 15:30

As expected, mpucoder's advice was sound and correct.

Pinnacle Studio can't handle widescreen in its video editing windows, so it displays any widescreen video as normal aspect, with the ends cut off. The resulting VOBs from Studio are still contain the widescreen format, but the IFOs tell the players that the videos are 4:3.

Even though Pinnacle could easily add a WS option even without the complexities of changing things in the editing and viewing windows, they have been unresponsive. They just sent around a survey so maybe there's hope for the future.

So the workaround in Studio8 is a follows:

1. Record in widescreen
2. Capture on HDD with Studio
3. Edit with Studio
4. "Make Disc" with Studio, but DO NOT put a DVD-R/RW in the drive
5. When Studio asks for DVD-R/RW, exit
6. Find the Studio output files
7. Use IFOEDIT to change the IFOs in VIDEO_TS to 16:9 everytime they have 4:3 and check the "Letterbox" option as mpucoder pointed out. Also allow IFOEDIT to capitalize "Video_ts" or do that yourself. Studio sets this up as Video_ts and capitalizes upon burning. If you forget to change this your DVD won't play in many set top AND computer players.
8. Go into VIDEO_TS and erase Volume.* and Anchor.*
9. Use RecordNow, Nero, Roxio, etc. to burn your widescreen DVD. Add AUDIO_TS if you like, I always do.

That's the story. I've honed this process over 26 soccer game films this past season.

Zep

pepeduran · 12th August 2004, 15:43

I am having similar problems to imperial zeppilin, except I am using Ulead Movie Factory 3.
I have no problem using IFOEDIT to change the IFOs in VIDEO_TS to 16:9 everytime they have 4:3 and check the "Letterbox" option.
But when I go to burn them using NERO I get a "DVD Video files compliance test failed The resulting DVD might be unplayable; do you want to continue." error.
Can anybody give me some advice on this problem.
I dont understand what Imperial Zeppelin means by "8. Go into VIDEO_TS and erase Volume.* and Anchor.*"
Is this maybe why I am getting this error with Nero ???

18th November 2003, 23:56	#1 \| Link
Imperial Zeppelin Registered User Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 138	Widescreen Not Letter Boxed on Normal Aspect TVs Learned Colleagues: I tried a search and came up blank. Problem: I record in 16:9 on my Sony MiniDV camera. I go and do my editing with Pinnacle Studio8 which only "sees" 4:3 and render a DVD which I don't burn, yet. Pinnacle sets all the IFOs to 4:3 ratio and I manually go in with IFOEdit to change every instance of 4:3 to 16:9. I then burn the edited DVD using RecordNow. The resulting DVD plays fine on a widescreen TV, but on a 4:3 aspect TV, instead of seeing the full widescreen picture in the horizontal dimension with black bars top and bottom, I get a picture that's full screen vertical, resulting in clipping on either end of the picture. Question: How do I edit the Pinnacle IFO files to get widescreen output on widescreen TVs and letterboxed output on 4:3 ratio TVs? Easy question. I hope the answer is as easy. Thanks in advance for the help. Zep

22nd November 2003, 15:30	#5 \| Link
Imperial Zeppelin Registered User Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 138	Pinnacle Doesn't "See It" But Doesn't Screw It Up Either... As expected, mpucoder's advice was sound and correct. Pinnacle Studio can't handle widescreen in its video editing windows, so it displays any widescreen video as normal aspect, with the ends cut off. The resulting VOBs from Studio are still contain the widescreen format, but the IFOs tell the players that the videos are 4:3. Even though Pinnacle could easily add a WS option even without the complexities of changing things in the editing and viewing windows, they have been unresponsive. They just sent around a survey so maybe there's hope for the future. So the workaround in Studio8 is a follows: 1. Record in widescreen 2. Capture on HDD with Studio 3. Edit with Studio 4. "Make Disc" with Studio, but DO NOT put a DVD-R/RW in the drive 5. When Studio asks for DVD-R/RW, exit 6. Find the Studio output files 7. Use IFOEDIT to change the IFOs in VIDEO_TS to 16:9 everytime they have 4:3 and check the "Letterbox" option as mpucoder pointed out. Also allow IFOEDIT to capitalize "Video_ts" or do that yourself. Studio sets this up as Video_ts and capitalizes upon burning. If you forget to change this your DVD won't play in many set top AND computer players. 8. Go into VIDEO_TS and erase Volume.* and Anchor.* 9. Use RecordNow, Nero, Roxio, etc. to burn your widescreen DVD. Add AUDIO_TS if you like, I always do. That's the story. I've honed this process over 26 soccer game films this past season. Zep Last edited by Imperial Zeppelin; 22nd November 2003 at 15:32.

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19th November 2003, 00:31	#2 \| Link
mpucoder Moderator Join Date: Oct 2001 Posts: 3,530	What you're seeing is "automatic Pan&Scan", what you want is "automatic letterboxed". In the same places where you found the aspect ratio are two flags that allow/disallow auto-P/S and auto-letterbox. IfoEdit has a nice dialog box for editing this, just double click on the video attributes, and make sure "automatic letterboxed" is checked, and "automatic Pan&Scan" is not. If both are checked (the default) then the choice between letterboxing or Pan&Scanning the video is made by the player. Some players allow you to enter your preference in a setup screen.

19th November 2003, 18:16	#3 \| Link
Imperial Zeppelin Registered User Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 138	Thanks, I'll try it tonight... FYI my default was nothing checked; the IFOs said "unspecified." When I check the box they now say "letterboxed." I guess the player on the normal aspect TV uses normal aspect as a default. The player on the widescreen TV was set by me with a widescreen default setting. Thanks again, Zep

21st November 2003, 11:21	#4 \| Link
fritzdis Registered User Join Date: Mar 2002 Posts: 58	Since I'm not sure whether Pinnacle is where the mpeg2 video stream is encoded, I'm not sure if this applies or not: The video stream itself has an aspect ratio flag that is separate from any settings in the ifo. If Pinnacle only sees your video as 4:3, then it may well set the aspect ratio in the video stream to 4:3. If this is the case, then your player may not display it letterboxed on a 4:3 TV even if you change the ifo and/or have the player set to letterbox. To find out what the aspect ratio is set to in the video stream, just load a vob into DVD2AVI and press preview. It will display the aspect ratio set in the video stream in the statistics window. If the video stream is set to 4:3, I believe you can fix it without any reencoding. Just extract the .m2v from the vobs and use Restream or some other tool to set the aspect ratio flag to 16:9. Then remux the new .m2v into the vobs with IfoEdit. Since you'd have only made minimal changes to the video stream, the remux should be perfect. Finally, also change the ifo settings to those stated by mpucoder.

12th August 2004, 15:43	#6 \| Link
pepeduran Registered User Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 15	I am having similar problems to imperial zeppilin, except I am using Ulead Movie Factory 3. I have no problem using IFOEDIT to change the IFOs in VIDEO_TS to 16:9 everytime they have 4:3 and check the "Letterbox" option. But when I go to burn them using NERO I get a "DVD Video files compliance test failed The resulting DVD might be unplayable; do you want to continue." error. Can anybody give me some advice on this problem. I dont understand what Imperial Zeppelin means by "8. Go into VIDEO_TS and erase Volume.* and Anchor.*" Is this maybe why I am getting this error with Nero ???