Aspect Ratio with Ipod

[gambrjl]

forgive me if this is a repeat question, I've been searching here for most of the day and googling also.

I've been converting some of my DVD's to mpeg4 to put on my video Ipod. I have used both Nero and DVD Decrypter and Videora for the process. One thing I'm struggling with is the aspect ratio. The widescreen movies look even smaller on my ipod screen. I'd like to make them 4:3 and don't know whether I can do that when I decrypt them, or alter the vob or ifo, or even change it once it's at the mp4 stage.

I'm trying ifoedit now to see if that will do it but what other options are out there for me guys? Nero's support site is awful, I kinda figured it would probably do it but no such luck finding out how so far

TIA

gambrjl

[gambrjl]

No suggestions here folks?

[VintageGold]

Video iPod has a native 4:3 aspect ratio and is 320x240 pixels. Hope this helps.

[killingspree]

if you convert your movies from 16:9 to 4:3 you will loose A LOT of picture information. but if you really want to do it, you should do it during the encoding from mpeg2 to mpeg4

greetings
steVe

[calinb]

I don't have a video iPod but I've heard that it supports H.263 at resolutions other than 480x480x30fps. The key is to keep your total pixels < 480 * 480 and the player will resize for local playback or support the extra resolution on an external TV.

I doubt it supports AR flags so, with Recode, your best bet is to select "Letterboxing - square pixels" to get the correct aspect ratio. For example, an anamorphic DVD rip could be custom resized to 624 x 352 (after you select the bitrate or Recode will put it back to "Automatic"). I've heard 24 fps should work okay too but, as I said, I've never tried it. Select the "quicktime" compatible box in recode and you should be good to go.

[laserfan]

I've been converting some of my DVD's to mpeg4 to put on my video Ipod... The widescreen movies look even smaller on my ipod screen.gambrjl take a look at Fairuse Wizard, which has this feature built-in (convert DVD to iPod). It has a very nice GUI and also allows you to crop the picture for 4:3 playback.

I think the iPod was meant for TV playback at 4:3, there will be no getting around that "Spider-Man 2" at 2.40:1 isn't going to look like much if you letterbox it to fit. I'd stick with 1.85:1 movies or less, and prolly crop/resize them to 320x240.