Hard Letterboxing

[mufc]

I have some DVD movies that have black bars all around (Hard Letterboxing) when played on my Widescreen Plasma. Most movies I back up as iso to play through my WDHD TV player look fine but some of them show up as just a small rectangle. Extremely frustrating. I prefer to back up my movies with NO compression (movie only) but with these unwatchable movies I need some way of getting these movies to behave like proper widescreen movies. I prefer no compression if something exists but what is my best option ? I do not want to distort the image in any way and I do not want to have to use my Plasma to stretch the movie. I have heard that Handbrake can be used for this but that encodes and therefore lowers the quality. This problem must frustrate a lot of people and I do not care how long of a process I would have to follow but I hate the fact I might have to forget about ever watching these movies again.

[jdobbs]

I have some movies that have black bars all around (Hard Letterboxing) when played on my Widescreen Plasma. Most movies I back up as iso to play through my WDHD TV player look fine but some of them show up as just a small rectangle. Extremely frustrating. I prefer to back up my movies with NO compression (movie only) but with these unwatchable movies I need some way of getting these movies to behave like proper widescreen movies. I prefer no compression if something exists but what is my best option ? I do not want to distort the image in any way and I do not want to have to use my Plasma to stretch the movie. I have heard that Handbrake can be used for this but that encodes and therefore lowers the quality. This problem must frustrate a lot of people and I do not care how long of a process I would have to follow but I hate the fact I might have to forget about ever watching these movies again.DVD or Blu-Ray?

DVD: DVD Rebuilder Pro does this for you automatically if you choose to do so from the selections.


Give up on trying to do it without reencoding. It can't be done. The bars are embedded in the picture and you have to resize/reencode to fill the screen.

[mufc]

dvd Sorry. What would be the best settings if using DVD Rebuilder Pro ?

[jdobbs]

dvd Sorry. What would be the best settings if using DVD Rebuilder Pro ?Under the "Options" tab, select "AVS Options"/"AVS Expert Options"/"Convert from LB 4:3 to 16:9"

You will see a list of VTS's -- choose the one you want converted (double-click). When you run it, it will be done for you automatically. The setting isn't persistent, so if you exit and come back into DVD-RB you will have to set it again...