What about 16:9 aspect ratios?

[Makurosu]

My Canon ZR45 camcorder can make movies in 16:9 aspect ratio. I prefer this format, but I'm having a lot of trouble converting from DV .AVI files to any other format. I tried converting to Divx using VirtualDub and AVISynth as per the FAQ, but it reformatted it into 4:3 aspect ratio. Same deal with Showbiz.

So far, the only program that has enabled me to convert to another format and still retain the 16:9 aspect ratio has been Windows Movie Maker. And that only allows me to make these horrid .WMV files, which can only be played on _some_ Windows computers. About 1/3rd of my friends can't play them on the most recent version of Windows Media Player. How do you like that?

So, I'm stumped. I'd like to make Divx or DVD movies without everyone looking like trees. Any ideas?

[OvERaCiD23]

You actually don't need to resize the video to the correct AR during encoding. Keep the video anamorphic, and use the player to resize the video (the DivX5 decoder has this, as does ffdshow. Most players (not WMP) have this as well). This would be easiest, but compression will suffer.

Here's a link to info about resizing. This is if you want to resize your video before encoding. http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=30495


Edit: From the Sticky at the top of the forum - "640x352" is the correct frame size for 16:9 DV footage. You should still read the info though. ;)

[Makurosu]

Simply resize to 640x352. That works perfectly! I knew it was something simple like that, and I think I was expecting resize to maintain the aspect ratio. Thanks for your help! ;)

[bb]

:readfaq: ;)

bb

[RathO]

Is there a quality loss when we resize from "16:9 DV footage" to 640x352 versus "4:3 DV footage" cropped/resized to 640x352?

I think the camcorder records with less horizontal lines when doing 16:9 directly from camera versus the same recording area with 4:3.

I have read the FAQ without finding the answer or am i blind?... :(

Regards