Can I use DVD Rebuilder to convert widescreen to 16:9?

[noels]

I think I read that DVD Rebuilder can re-encode a DVD to change the aspect ration of a movie... I have some widescreen-only DVDs that I want to watch full screen and my TV won't let me do that. It's a 30" HDTV and while it does have the capability to change aspect ratios, it won't let me change a widescreen DVD so that it fills the screen. I think I need to change the original DVD from widescreen to 16:9 or similar... Will DVD Rebuilder help me to do that :confused: ? How should I proceed?

[laserfan]

noels your post is a little confusing. When I first saw it I thought you wanted to convert letterboxed (non-anamorphic) DVDs to 16x9 anamorphic. For that, RB works great.

But are you talking about, say, a 2.35:1 movie which means you still have black bars above & below? Most TVs allow you to "Zoom" a movie to fill the screen...

I think you could use filters in RB to crop the sides off your 2.35:1 movies if you want but I'm not sure about this--someone else will have to chime-in.

[noels]

laserfan, a funny thing happened after I read your message. I decided to double check my situation with the DVD player and TV... I put a widescreen DVD in one of my 2 DVD players (a recording DVD player hooked up via the YCbCr ports to my TV) and was able to zoom the pic to fill the screen, but when using a different DVD player (with my non-recording DVD player hooked up to the S-Video ports to the TV), it would not zoom to full screen. So I'm scratching my head at this point. I guess I don't really have a problem after all - I just need to use the right DVD player :p Thanks for your help - in any case I learned something new and presumably valuable!!

[maxse]

remember though, when you zoo min on your TV you are actually cutting out the picture on the sides so you are missing parts of the movie on both sides...

[HanSolo00]

Have you setup your DVD player(s) for 16:9 output? The default factory TV setting for DVD players is usually 4:3.

DVD-RB is great for converting letterbox 4x3 to 16x9 anamorphic--a procedure I use on all letterbox titles.

[jdobbs]

If you have a 2.35:1 movie that is anamorphic (letterboxed into 16:9) and you want to get rid of the borders (but note you will also be trimming 90 pixels of the picture from each of the two sides)... you can add this filter for NTSC:

LanczosResize(720, 480, 90, 60, 540, 360)

or this for PAL:

LanczosResize(720, 576, 90, 72, 540, 432)

Note to everyone: Please no comments about "purity" or "I'd never" in response to this post. I'm not endorsing trimming picture elements from the original -- I'm only showing that it is possible. To each his/her own.

Also to those who question the numbers;

1.77778/2.35 = .7565 -- which gives you odd numbers, so I chose to use .75. The important thing is that you perform the same scaling on the x and the y axis... since the picture stays in a 16:9 aspect ratio after resizing.

Also this is assuming you are working with a FILM source that is progressive (again for those who will start throwing the "you should separate fields" arguments).

It's amazing how many caveats you have to throw into anything you say just to keep the wolves at bay, isn't it?

[blutach]

It's amazing how many caveats you have to throw into anything you say just to keep the wolves at bay, isn't it?Bit like asking yourself a question and saying "That's a good question!" http://img116.exs.cx/img116/1231/z7shysterical.gif

(No malice intended jdobbs)

Regards

[laserfan]

I think jdobbs you should put that post into the "Tips & Tricks" part of the Help file.

I've saved your post myself, but I know when I need it I'm not going to be able to find it!!!!