DVD to DivX Aspect Ratio Changes

[Bardmaster]

Hi, I'm still trying to understand the principles behind anamorphic (letterboxing) video and how DVD's use straight 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratios while DivX uses square pixels. Thus, when you rip n'recode an MPEG-2 DVD into a DivX AVI file and play it back on the same 16:9 LCD TV, the picture appears stretched...or at least much thinner than the DVD playback, with up to an inch of added blackbar on both top and bottom.

How does one go about correcting for this? I'm putting together a media server that streams video to my TV, but I'd like 16x9 video to fill more of the screen.

Sorry, I know there are bits and pieces of this in other threads, but I can't really get a grasp on any technique, if any, to expand the picture to look more like the original DVD.

[Bardmaster]

I should add: I know that actual DVD 16:9 ratio is actually 720x480 but most widescreen pictures appear to be 720x320 or 720x304 actual, with blackbars added to fill the 720x480 screen. 720x320 is manageable, but once you get down to 720x304, like the Star Wars movies appear to be, it's looking just a bit too narrow on my LCD TV (just a 26" LCD, mind you). Yet, these still look "thicker" when played back from DVD.

Somebody mentioned DVD playback does "oversampling" which makes the difference, but I'm not sure what that means. Does it just "magnify" the picture so you lose some detail on the edges (which I wouldn't necessarily mind, to retain image quality).

[SeeMoreDigital]

Before understanding how "aspect ratio signalling" (ARS) works with cropped and re-sized MPEG-4 streams, first you need to understand what MPEG-2 DVD source images look like before "aspect ratio signalling" is applied....

Shame DivX did not include any "display aspect ratio" (DAR) ARS values (like XviD does)....