16:9 / 4:3 problems

[J-Wo]

I have a movie which DGIndex for some reason incorrectly recognizes as 16:9 in its preview window. I can just tell that's wrong because the movie is letterboxed and isn't like Lord of the Rings where the black bars are part of a extra widescreen aspect ratio. When I load the movie in DVD-Rb, it correctly shows the VTS is 4:3. BUT when it encodes, it encodes as 16:9, so the result is vertically squished due to the black bars which are in fact part of a letterboxed 4:3 display and not an anamorphic movie.

I hope this description of my problem has made sense... does anyone know what I can do to fix this???

[J-Wo]

I've noticed that the problem actually occurs after ripping with DVD Decrypter. If I play the original DVD with PowerDVD, under Configuration -> Information, it correctly states that the aspect ratio is 4:3. The video is playing correctly, in 4:3 letterboxed (i.e. NOT 16:9 widescreen). But when I load the vob's into DVD2AVI (or dvd2avidg, or dgindex), the preview screen says it's 16:9 when it's so obviously not!!! Consequently, both DVD-Rb and even DVD-Shrink produce output files as a letterboxed 16:9, resulting in a very squished video.

I am using DVD Decryptor v3.5.1.0 and have tried both file and ISO ripping modes. Anyone know what's going on?

[jdobbs]

This is an interesting phenomena. I have actually seen (Star Trek Next Generation) DVDs that are were 4:3 -- but were physically flagged as 16:9 in the MPEG stream. So when it get's run through, the interim output (with, say, WMP) incorrectly displays as 16:9... but (and here's the interesting part) the IFO correctly identifies the stream as 4:3... and since the IFO has precedence on the playback, the resulting DVD plays fine!

I looked at it several times... I don't know why it was authored this way -- but DVD-RB recreates it as originally specified and it works fine.

[J-Wo]

okay, I've partially fixed the problem. After the prepare phase, I loaded rebuilder.ecl into CCE. I noticed all the AVS files were set for 16:9 output, so I changed them all to 4:3 and resaved the .ecl file. Then during the encoding phase, it correctly made .m2v files with a 4:3 flag as verified by loading it into DVD Patcher or DVD-Lab. BUT when I click rebuild, the resulting VOBs have a 16:9 aspect ratio, as seen when played in PowerDVD and on my standalone. I only have a 4:3 standard def tv, and when I play the burned disk there are extra wide bars on top and bottom, unlike the original. The only way to display it correctly is to tell my player I have a 16:9 tv.

Any idea what I can do to tell Rb to rebuild in 4:3, and not 16:9?

edit: aha! I feel so smart, I got it to work. Loaded the movie up on PGCEdit, then went to the VTST containing my movie. Then under Utilities -> Domain Stream Attributes, I changed the tick from 16:9 to 4:3. And it worked! :D :D

[BruceL]

@J-Wo
Thank you for your "aha!" fix. I was going nuts trying to figure out how my original DVD was 4:3 but the rebuild was 16:9. I saw your post and checked the VTST with PGCEdit as you suggested and that did the trick! It worked for me too! :D :D

[jdobbs]

Something is wrong with this picture. The aspect ratio that DVD-RB uses is pulled directly from the MPEG stream itself. I can assure you that if the .ECL was set to 16:9 -- SO WAS THE SOURCE MPEG STREAM.

Did you let the entire process complete and then play the DVD back? (not with Media Player or anything that doesn't read the IFOs) As I mentioned above, rarely the stream is set to 16:9 but is set for playback as 4:3.

[MvB]

Hi,

you can change the aspect ratio to 4:3 in ifoedit just as easy. Just click on the displayed aspect ratio and change it. After that you have to save, of course. But probably it's just as easy in PGCedit.

Cu
MvB

[BruceL]

@jdobbs
The movie I was backing up was "reformated" from widescreen to fit on a standard TV. The original DVD when played, always showed all the content as 4:3. After ripping, the intro footage was in widescreen but switched to 4:3 when the movie starts. The VTST files from the original said 4:3 for all files but the one after rebuilder for the movie content said 16:9. I let the entire process complete two times and got the same result. I played back the rebuilds with PowerDVD5.

[cdrips]

Thank you for your suggestion using IfoEdit. I also was having this type of problem. I checked DGIndex and it has the 4:3 flag and rebuilder's files were 4:3. IfoEdit showed the original movie vobs were also 4:3. However, for some reason dvd-rb changed the ar to 16:9.