How to do pan&scan (actually just scan)

[saptecai]

I have captured a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode from BBC FOUR (DVB) the other day and the picture is in 4:3 ratio but has black bars on each side that make it 16:9.

I wouldn't like to see the bars on the final DVD. On a 4:3 TV it would look
surrounded by a black bars everywhere.

Can I get rid of them without re-encoding?

I found out that I need to author the DVD using Pan&Scan (basicly mainly scan) so that on 4:3 displays the central 4:3 picture would fill the screen and the two black vertical bars on the sides would be excluded. Isn't this a great feature, all of a sudden.... It might be if I learn how to implement it.

So far I know that scenarist can do this and also ifoedit can modify letterboxed to pan & scan in the DVDs one would author with a less extra-terrestrial ($ wise) authoring software. (thanks to ngreatorex for info)

The mpeg2 I have is 704x576 (PAL 16:9).

Can anybody help further?

[Matthew]

I've used Maestro's panscan option, but unless the panscan information is in the video stream itself, then on some dvd players only the left hand side of the picture may be shown.

CCE has a checkbox so that middle 540 pixels (out of 720) is to be displayed. Not sure how your 704 fits into this though.

As you don't want to re-encode then you can use restream (which is free) to add this info ("add sequence display extention" is the option).

AFAIK you will get quality loss though, as the dvd player will zoom in though in order to cut off the sides. So keep 16:9 widescreen as an option.

So to recap:
-Run video though restream with add sequence display extention enabled.
-Reauthor with whatever app you like but in IFOEdit make sure 16:9, automatic pan and scan and automatic letterbox are all checked.

Hope this answers your question :)