Please Help With Aspect Ratio Adjustment

[Dyluminati]

I am brand-Deleted profanity-new at DVD ripping and burning. I want to alter the aspect ratio of a DVD. I've tried to look it up myself and I can't find Deleted profanity to help me. It's probably me not the information, often when I'm reading different post on here and other places I don't understand the lingo. Could someone either give me simple instructions with everything spelled out, meaning no abreviations, or point me in the direction of a good guide, please? I would prefer free software if at all possible. I've downloaded various programs and have spent a lot of time already trying to make them work and trying to find instructions on how to accomplish my goal, but nothing has provided any answers. Thank you in advance. - D

[check]

If by "alter the aspect ratio" you mean changing a 4:3 (ie the image is four units wide and three high) to 16:9 (aka widescreen) or vice versa, there is not way to do this well. You will end up either cutting off part of the video or stretching/compressing the image which will make all the people look funny.
Could you tell us what in particular you want to do? (ie 4:3 -> 16:9 or 16:9 -> 4:3 or something else)

[Dyluminati]

I hope to go 16:9 -> 4:3.

[CWR03]

I hope to go 16:9 -> 4:3.
You should probably not expect much help on this matter, and for three reasons:

1) There is no valid reason to go from 16:9 to 4:3 within the DVD because most players have the ability to zoom and crop, even if it's not a playback option on the disk.

2) Few people remain, especially on this forum, who believe that cutting off a portion of the video just to get rid of the black bars on a regular TV is acceptable. There is no way to go from 16:9 to 4:3 without either cropping part of the video or distorting the image.

3) There is no need to use vulgarity to try and get your point across, not to mention it is against the forum rules (http://forum.doom9.org/forum-rules.htm).

What you want can be done, but it's not a beginner's task at all, it will necessitate re-encoding the video which will lose quality, and there is no existing guide that suits your purpose. You'll also not likely find what you need in a free program that will be simple to use, so expect to purchase an editing/DVD creation program, most of which cost $50-100. Many retail companies offer a trial version on their sites so you can test to see if it will fit your needs.