4:3 and 16:9 versions in same disk

[aklendathu]

I have seen an interesting effect on my Mustek DVD player: when I play e.g., Chicken Run or Shrek, I can see the movie in 4:3 pan-scan. However, when the same movies are played on a Sony DVD player, they show up in 16:9 letterbox.
It's the same disk so how come the players use two different display modes ? I've looked into the movie IFO files but could not understand what's happening.

Any help will be appreciated.

[mpucoder]

It's determined by the preference (see SPRM 14 http://www.mpucoder.com/DVD/sprm.html ) of each player, which you can change with a setup menu.
Of course, the movie must allow both modes for this to happen, otherwise you will see the only allowed mode, which is in the video attributes http://www.mpucoder.com/DVD/ifo.html#vidatt

btw: both of these display modes are for 16:9 on 4:3 display

[aklendathu]

How can I see if the movie allows both modes ? Suppose I want to make a DVD backup where I wish to allow both viewing modes (depending upon player settings) ? What should I do in IFOEdit ?

[XCPU]

to mpucoder

how to use SPRM?? can you give us a sample??

Thank you!

[kaizer_soze]

To aklendathu:

Open the IFO file (i.e. VTS_01_0.IFO)
There will be a line like
Video: MPEG-2 720x576 (PAL) (PAL 625/50)(16:9) (letterboxed)
Double click this line, make whatever changes you like and
press tha save button. Burn the DVD
Et Voila!

[aklendathu]

kaizer_soze,

Thanks for the tip, but what I really wanted to know is how it happens for a commercial DVD disc. Mpucoder's technical explanation is not much help, I'm afraid, because the tables he mentions are hard to understand. Anyway, the preferences I set for my SONY player are overriden by the disc settings as stated in the player docs. :(

Cheers,

Pedro.

[aklendathu]

As an update to my last post, I think I finally figured out how it works. If both the 4:3 Letterbox & PanScan boxes are ticked when editing the video properties in VTS_01_0.IFO, then the DVD player is allowed to select between them. However, the PanScan only works properly with 16:9 movies if the MPEG-2 resolution is 720x576 (and of course if the video is anamorphic 16:9 to begin with).