Trying to create Widescreen SD DVD

[Brian Louis]

720×480 wide screen will appear stretched on a 4:3 tv as its anamorphic video with a par 1.2 there should be a flag in the video that tells that DVD player that it wide screen and outputs correctly if it detects a wide screen. what are you trying to view on what?

[Joe Bandy]

I also noticed that Encore is having trouble exporting 2 clips that I created in CS4. The I exported them the exact same way but the clips that encore is having problems with have a pixel aspect ratio of square 1.0. The other clips have a pixel aspect ratio of 1.2 (widescreen) When I remove the 2 clips with ratios of 1.0 I was able to successfully build a image.
If I put them back on the timeline and conform them to 1.2 I cannot build a image.

I’m guessing that somthing is wrong with my export from CS4. But I used the exact same settings.

I tried authoring the same clips in both Encore CS3 and Encore CS4 and recieved the same error.

[Jon Barrie]

Encore won’t support square pixel clips, re-export them out and make sure the PAR setting is correct for DVD (0.9 for 4:3, 1.2 for 16:9 NTSC)
– JB

Jon Barrie
aJBprods
http://www.jonbarrie.net

[Joe Bandy]

I checked some other successful DVD Encore Projects in CS3 that use video clips that have square 1.0 PARs according to Encore. I checked the actual properties of those m2v files in premiere CS3 and it said the PAR is 0.9 and the export settings from the adobe media encoder in those projects is also set for standard 0.9.
Encore must round up to the PAR up to 1.0 upon import, this doesn’t seem correct.
We used the settings:
mpeg 2-dvd
export video and audio,
720×480
Progressive
standard 4:3 (0.9)
audio 16bit 48khz

The video comes out letterboxed in Encore which is fine but we were trying to make the video full screen so we tried using the settings:

mpeg 2-dvd
export video and audio,
720×480
Progressive
widescreen 16:9 (1.2)
audio 16bit 48khz

Now the clips I exported from CS4 using these settings did not cause any problems in Encore CS4 and were 0.9 PAR but the video clip that I exported from CS3 ended up being 1.2 PAR and I don’t know why.

I think this is the problem because I tried transcoding that clip from 1.2 to 1.0 PAR in encore and was able make an image and a disc.

Do I need to open the CS3 project in CS4 to get the correct widescreen pixel aspect ratio?

Does Encore only support 1.2 PAR for Bluray?

[Mike Cohen]

In Encore, right click the m2v file and select “interpret footage” – this may be greyed out unless you have interpretable video. Normally NTSC widescreen mpeg2 exports from Premiere work fine.

I see you are making your MPEG-2 files Progressive – are you starting with Progressive source such as 720p? I had always heard that you should not convert interlaced video to progressive when going to DVD as it could affect playback. Not sure this is still (or was ever) true.

Mike Cohen