4:3 Movie on 16:9 TV

[knigge]

Hi,

Im trying to compose a DVD from several short-movies. They are all in 4:3 format and i used a resolution of 720 x 576 (PAL) with the right par so that the movies should be displayed in 4:3. On a 4:3 TV it is working really fine but when i use a 16:9 TV the picture is always stretched to this format. Is this a problem of encoding? (do i have to add borders?) Or do i have to change something in my authoring tool so that the dvd-player knows, what size to use? (Im using DVD-lab)

thanks

[setarip_old]

Hi!

Doesn't your 16x9 TV provide several different display settings?

[kolak]

Just make sure that they're encoded as 4x3 and this should work.
Make sure your player (in the player setup) is set to 16x9 if your
TV is 16x9 (and TV is set to 16x9).

Some player-TV combinations may still not work properly and the only way is to set proper aspect ratio in your TV manually.


Andrew

[Emulgator]

DVD-LabPro2 has a good choice of IFO AR flags to set, that makes it so useful.
Project->Project Properties->"Automatic-Set by Player" enables to have both LB and PS as a choice on player side
when a 16:9 movie is to be played back, a 4.3 display is connected and such display is made known to the player by the user.
But the player has to be told !

But in your case it looks as you would have to setup player and TV to not stretch 4:3 content as kolak and setarip_old suggested.

And finally PGCEdit still allows to fix any unintended AR IFO settings and (many more) after authoring.

[Ghitulescu]

Hi,

Im trying to compose a DVD from several short-movies. They are all in 4:3 format and i used a resolution of 720 x 576 (PAL) with the right par so that the movies should be displayed in 4:3. On a 4:3 TV it is working really fine but when i use a 16:9 TV the picture is always stretched to this format. Is this a problem of encoding? (do i have to add borders?) Or do i have to change something in my authoring tool so that the dvd-player knows, what size to use? (Im using DVD-lab)

thanks
The custom-clip-collection-on-your-dvd should behave the same as the original DVDs you used. That is if your DVDs that are 4:3 look perfect on your 16:9 TV, then the compilation should look exactly the same way (provided you didn't play with the options in the wrong way :)).

[netmask]

Hi,

Im trying to compose a DVD from several short-movies. They are all in 4:3 format and i used a resolution of 720 x 576 (PAL) with the right par so that the movies should be displayed in 4:3. On a 4:3 TV it is working really fine but when i use a 16:9 TV the picture is always stretched to this format. Is this a problem of encoding? (do i have to add borders?) Or do i have to change something in my authoring tool so that the dvd-player knows, what size to use? (Im using DVD-lab)

thanks



Open the video IFO in IfoEdit, choose the video stream in the list, double click on it, and select "4:3 Pan and Scan" and deselect the other 2 options if any are ticked then save the IFO. You will have to do this for each title in the collection

That's it burn the disc

[2Bdecided]

Check what this 16x9 TV does with commercial 4x3 discs. It might just be set to stretch everything out, and the disc itself is fine.

You don't need to add borders.

I don't think 4x3 pan and scan (on the disc) is the right option at all. Standard 4x3 is what's needed.

Try playing your disc on a PC to see if it's correct. PC DVD players respect the aspect ratio that's flagged on the disc AFAIK.

Cheers,
David.

[netmask]

If the original material is 4:3 ticking the pan and scan box in IFOEdit will force a standalone DVD player to display as 4:3 and no material will be cut off or lost on the other hand the OP may have authored the project as 16:9 rather than 4:3 or the TV may have a setting to stretch everything - lots of variables - if the 4:3 material happens to be pillaboxed within a 16:9 frame then that describes quite accurately what the OP is seeing from his DVD player. So the simple solution is edit the IFO file. Also the preferences in the DVD player could be set incorrectly. The easiest way to find out if editing the IFO file is to burn a rewriteable and try it.
Here is a thread that may be of interest
Disabling letterboxed and enabling pan and scan with IfoEdit solved the problem.
Not sure why my player was still chosing letterboxed when I set it to pan and scan, but it seems to work with the above IFO setting.
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=109058

[2Bdecided]

netmask,

But that thread was about a 16x9 image containing 4x3 pillarboxed content (i.e. about 540 active pixels in a line). Pan and scan is a solution there (encoding full frame 4x3 would be better!). Pan and Scan is not a good solution if you have a full frame 4x3 image to start with IMO.

Cheers,
David.

[netmask]

Maybe the OP used 16:9 as the project choice in DVD-lab thinking this would suit a 16:9 display rather than 4:3 to match the aspect ratio of the source material, assuming all the clips were in-fact 4:3

How did he capture the clips? ie direct digital copy or a capture device? If a capture device what is it's native aspect ratio? I have a MPEG2 hardware device that assumes and cannot be changed 16:9 and another that is 4:3. So more details on the original source material and how it was captured/copied would be helpful.

[2Bdecided]

Easy way to check the actual video content is to drop the MPEG or VOB onto VirtualDub, because it doesn't respect aspect ratio flags, but shows you the actual pixels.

Don't bother loading the whole thing if it looks like it'll take a long time - just hit cancel.

Then look for black bars (if any).

If there aren't any, then it's full screen 4x3, and flagging it as 4x3 is the best you can do. DVDpatcher will quickly change the flags on MPEG-2 content.

Cheers,
David.

[Mug Funky]

yeah, there's nothing that states a DVD player must correctly display 4:3 on a 16:9 TV. just vice-versa.

a correctly authored DVD with a run-of-the-mill widescreen TV will probably play all 4:3 discs in fat-mode. you might have more luck with upscaling players.

flagging everything right is a good idea though

this is why i use my laptop for playback these days. more buggy, but a bit more control ultimately.

[2Bdecided]

yeah, there's nothing that states a DVD player must correctly display 4:3 on a 16:9 TV. just vice-versa.

a correctly authored DVD with a run-of-the-mill widescreen TV will probably play all 4:3 discs in fat-mode. you might have more luck with upscaling players.Most European TVs detect the WideScreenSwitching signal on line 23, and the voltage on Pin 8 SCART where 0–0.4V → off, 5–8V → 16:9, 9.5–12V → on/4:3.

Many people over ride this and force all content to fill the screen because they don't like black bars - but most 16:9 TVs have the ability to automatically switch between 4:3 and 16:9 correctly when driven by most STBs and DVD players (i.e. when fed with full-frame images + WSS and/or SCART pin 8).

Obviously there's no SCART in the USA, and the aspect ratio signalling sometimes carried on "NTSC" lines 20 and/or 19 is not as widely supported as the "PAL"/European variant is over here. So I'm not surprised a correctly authored disc still plays in "fat people" screen filling mode.


Few European TVs aspect ratio switch "properly" on HDMI with HD - it's not clear to me that they should, but many prevent the user from even changing it manually - anyway, they expect the source device to pillarbox 4:3 content into 16:9 HD frames.

Cheers,
David.

[netmask]

IfoEdit: Using the 16:9 flag (http://www.dvdr-digest.com/articles/42_1.html)