Aspect

Movick wrote on 2/5/2009, 4:22 PM
Hello

I have DVDA 2.0. I updated (created new menu, graphics, bumper pages, etc.) a DVD for friend 18 months who provided me with old 4:3 Beta footage which I converted to .avi. I probably should have created the project for widescreen, but I went with the 720X480 NTSC instead. I really don't want to redo this project, as all of the menu elements, etc accomodate 4:3; will the DVD rescale automatically when played on a 16:9 setup?

Thanks

Comments

bStro wrote on 2/5/2009, 5:22 PM
Well, if the footage was 4:3, then I'd say you made the right choice. Any method needed to convert it to widescreen would have either a) distorted the image or b) chopped off part of the image. Or added pillars, which is what most widescreen setups are going to do anyhow.

As for how it will be played on a 16:9 setup, that depends on how the viewer has his TV and DVD player configured. Most DVD players have a setting that tells the player whether the TV connected is widescreen or standard. In addition, most widescreen TVs have an Aspect setting that tells the TV how to display the content it receives, including what to do with content that's 4:3. Most common options are as-is (4:3 content will be pillared -- bars on the left and right sides), stretched (distorting the image), or zoom (which keeps the aspect ratio the same but will chop off the top and bottom).

Personally, I like to see all of the original image and have it not distorted, so I stick with the pillared option. This "doesn't look right" to some people, but they're wrong. ;-)

Rob
Movick wrote on 2/5/2009, 8:22 PM
Rob,

Thanks for the info my friend! I was pretty sure widescreen TVs have that option; however when I tried this DVDA 2.0 authored disc on my own system (DVD player / 50" plasma without OEM remote) I was unable to scale the picture. The menu/video from the disc filled out the entire screen and some of the image was lost. The brand-new DVD player offered aspect choices, but none of them affected the monitor’s scaling after selection. I suspect had my OEM remote been available I should have been able to make the adjustment.

As well, I believe I could have rendered the original clips to 16:9 by simply overlaying the original footage over frame-filling Digital Juice backgrounds or such in Vegas and producing the menu graphics to accommodate 16:9 (854X480). Unfortunately at the time I hadn't thought that way and I got a little panicky as I sent the master off to production recently.

I’ll certainly sleep better tonight!

Thanks again!!

Mov