Aspect ratio nightmares

DVD Authoring

Aspect ratio nightmares

Posted by Christopher Mcnamara on March 25, 2011 at 2:59 am

Hello you fine people,

I’m currently trying to create a DVD for a project that is 16:9. I want to be able to author a DVD that will play full screen on a newer 16:9 monitor as well as play letterbox on a 4:3 monitor.

I have chosen 16:9 as my display mode in my preferences. When I try to do a simulator preview, the 4;3 default display shows up – and the video plays strethed vertically to fit the screen – not letterboxed in other words. When I switch the display settings on the simulator to 16:9 aspect ratio, the movie stays in the 4;3 mode….. I’m going crazy.

If anyone can help me that would be greatly apprectiated.

Sincerely,

Chris

Bill Stephan replied 15 years, 2 months ago 4 Members · 4 Replies
4 Replies

Noah Kadner
March 25, 2011 at 5:17 am

Make sure the footage is 16:9 anamorphic, as is the MPEG-2 encode. Then set the track in DVDSP to 16:9 Letterbox.

Noah

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Christopher Mcnamara
March 25, 2011 at 2:48 pm

Noah,
Thanks so much. I’ve tried this and to no avail. I even started a new project and made sure the preferences where consistently 16:9 anamorphic.

Let me put out as much info as I can to see if it’s really operator error (no surprises there really…):

The material was shot on a Panasonic HVX 100
Edited in FCP.
Exported as Apple ProRes 422, Linear PCM, – 1280×720

Maybe this is incompatible?

Should I instead do two versions – one as is – to play on widescreen displays, and the other letterboxed and then exported from FCP.

Thanks again.

Chris
Kylee Pena
March 25, 2011 at 5:22 pm

Are you dropping the ProRes 1280×720 file into DVDSP? You need to take it to Compressor and encode it for DVD first – you get two files, m2v and ac3. I’m guessing if you’re dropping this ProRes file into DVDSP, the aspect ratio in the intermediate conversion DVDSP tries to do isn’t working out – going from square pixels to nonsquare, and all that junk. That’s not the way to do it – when you put files into DVDSP, you should see green dots almost immediately, not yellow 🙂

You definitely don’t need two versions.
Bill Stephan
March 25, 2011 at 5:28 pm

Also check that the DVD player is set correctly in its setup menu for the type of display you are using, whether 16:9 or 4:3.

Bill Stephan
Senior Editor/DVD Author
USA Studios
New York City

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