Anamorphic Zoom Flag?

[RedStep]

Anybody know of a way to flag an anamorphic image to zoom into 4:3 mode if it's on a 4:3 tv?

I know that certain DVD's do it, such as menus. On a 16:9 tv, you see the whole image. On a 4:3 TV, the sides are cut off.

The reason is that I'm encoding certain TV shows to DVD. To correctly display on my widescreen, I'm encoding them as anamorphic with black bars on the sides. If a person watches this on a 4:3 tv though, the video will be in a small square in the center.

Anybody know of a way to tell the player to zoom in on a 4:3 tv so my friends can watch these too?

Thanks for your help

[Matthew]

You can use the panscan checkbox in CCE to chop off the sides such that what they will see on the vertical of a 4:3 TV matches what you will see on a 16:9 TV.

You can also use restream to losslessly insert this flag after encoding.

It's technically possible to set the display area as being different from just the middle part according to the part of the film - e.g. you could just chop of the right hand side in one scene and the left in another - thus making it true pan and scan as opposed to just scan. But obviously you'd need the right software and it would take (a lot) more effort.

You'll also need to select the appropriate setting in your authoring program.

Then, your friends select "4:3 pan and scan" on their DVD player.

[RedStep]

Thanks, I'll try this now