DVD with full screen and widescreen video

TheHappyFriar wrote on 6/24/2009, 8:59 AM

you need two completely different sets of videos. one 4:3, one 16:9. Then let the user choose if they want 4:3 or 16:9 before they watch the videos. I think it could be done in a script, but I don't know.

bStro wrote on 6/24/2009, 9:37 AM

When I import this video, it fits the 4:3 inside the 16:9 project, therefore creating black bars on both top, bottom and sides of the video.

Is it a 4:3 video with letterboxed content? That's the only way I can think of you'd get black bars on all sides. The top and bottom are part of the video. The sides are being introduced by the display device (in this case, DVD Architect) to fit the 4:3 video in a widescreen space. If this is what's happening, your choices are either a) recrop the video properly to a widescreen file or b) tell your customer he has to use his television's zoom function.

If it's just straight 4:3 full screen video, you'd only be seeing black bars on the side.

Rob

Rafa@mediatechplus wrote on 6/24/2009, 9:44 AM

HI!
Thanks for replying.
My comp in DVDA is NTSC widescreen. The widescreen videos look fine, but the 4:3 gets fitted into the 16:9 space. Yes the video is a full 4:3.

If I create a full screen comp in DVDA and import the 4:3 video, it fills up the whole screen as expected. Unfortunately, I cant use the widescreen videos on a new 4:3 comp, because they wouldn't look widescreen on a widescreen TV

I have seen DVDs made with both formats (like when you get a DVD movie, store bought, and the bonus contents are not in 16:9 but they show all the way top and bottom and only bars on the side). Is this something DVDA can achieve?

Rafa.

Former user wrote on 6/24/2009, 10:09 AM

It sounds like your 4x3 video is being rendered with the 16 x 9 flag.

Make sure you are rendering it as a 4x3 aspect.

It should fill top to bottom with black bars on the side.

Dave T2

TheHappyFriar wrote on 6/24/2009, 10:11 AM

the DVD player will automatically output 4:3 or 16:9, whatever the video itself is. You can have one video 4:3 (ie main feature) & it will show 4:3. Then have another @ 16:9 & it will show @ 16:9.

Rafa@mediatechplus wrote on 6/24/2009, 11:00 AM

DaveT2,
Yes... thats what it seems like. DVDA is rendering the 4:3 in the 16:9 aspect (without distorting it). How can I tell DVDA to leave the 4:3 alone and let it show full screen?

TheHappyFriar,
I would think the DVD players would show this correctly, but they are not! I have tested in 3 DVD players and a PS3, and it shows incorrectly in all of them.

There has to be a way around this!
Rafa.

darkframe wrote on 6/25/2009, 6:14 AM

Hi,

in order to produce a mixed aspect ratio DVD which will be fully compliant to the specifications, hence working in all players you need to author it with an authoring application allowing you to add additional video title sets (VTS) like e.g. DVDLab from Mediachance (I don't know whether DVDArchitect is capable of multi-VTS as well, sorry).

One of those VTSs needs to be set to 16:9, the other one to 4:3. Putting videos with different aspect ratios into one single VTS will often lead to false results as many hardware players are not reading the aspect ratio flag from the video but from the IFO (information file) of the VTS. Those IFOs are created by the authoring application and there's no room in them for two aspect ratio flags.

Cheers

darkframe

Rafa@mediatechplus wrote on 6/25/2009, 7:50 AM

Darkframe,
Thank you for your response!
Using the multiple VTS files idea was the first thing I tried with DVDA, unfortunately it didn't work (at least not with the standard import method). I am hoping that there is a script method that someone might be able to point me in the right direction of doing.

But thanks for your assurance, I thought I might have been doing something wrong. I did noticed that you CAN have wide screen menus with standard videos (that do fill up the entire screen on a wide screen TV). I wonder why its not available to do with the videos as well...

Rafa.

Former user wrote on 6/25/2009, 8:13 AM

Try this.

Go to OPTIMIZE DVD under File Menu.

Click on the MPEG name on the left. Click on the VIDEO tab on the right.

Under RECOMPRESS SETTINGS there is an ASPECT RATIO option. In your case this should NOT be set for FROM PROJECT. It should be set to 4x3.

Dave T2

PeterWright wrote on 6/26/2009, 12:11 AM

I have a project, authored in DVDA, which originally contained 8 separate clips, all 4:3.

I recently added a new widescreen clip to this. The project is still a default 4:3 project, and playback now behaves as follows:

On a widescreen TV the 4:3 clips automatically letterbox, playing with blackbars at the sides, but occupying the full screen height. The new 16:9 clip fills the screen completely.

On a 4:3 TV, the 4:3 clips fill the screen completely, and the 16:9 clip automatically letterboxes, with black bars top and bottom, but occupying full screen width.

darkframe wrote on 6/26/2009, 12:32 AM

Hi,

I did noticed that you CAN have wide screen menus with standard videos (that do fill up the entire screen on a wide screen TV).

The reason is that there's an extra IFO for the menu which has got its own aspect ratio flag.

All menus of a VTS are represented by a VTS_xx_0.IFO and a VTS_xx_0.VOB. While the menu itself, i.e. still menu/motion menu, accompanying audio and the button subpictures are muxed into the VOB, the IFO contains all relevant information about the contents of the VOB. Regarding aspect ratio there're only two bits keeping the information. They can be set to 0 (4:3), 1 (not specified), 2 (reserved) or 3 (16:9). Values 1 and 2 should not be used and might lead to unwanted if not strange results. However, there's no possibility to tell the IFO that e.g. the first menu is 4:3 while e.g. an audio menu is 16:9 in case both are placed into the same VTS.

The same is valid for the main title. There's (for the first VTS) a VTS_01_1.IFO and there can be up to 9 VOBs of 1GB each (VTS_01_1.VOB up to VTS_01_9.VOB). A second VTS would be named VTS_02 etc. Like for menus there're only two bits available for the aspect ratio setting in VTS_xx_1.IFO .

Additionally the movies (or better: "titles" in DVD-language) have got their own aspect ratio flag but obviously that flag is a left-over from the MPEG2 specifications which will be helpful for file restoration in case of broken IFOs and BUPs (which are nothing more than backups of the IFOs).

So, finally, although a menu of a VTS might be in 4:3 and title(s) in the same VTS might be in 16:9 (or vice versa), all menu stuff or all titles within a single VTS should have the same aspect ratio. As said in my previous post, having mixed aspect ratio titles might work (and it's obviously working for Peter) but there's no guarantee. Regarding any software and/or hardware player that is solely dependent on from where the player gets the aspect ratio information. Hardware players tend to be more strict as far as DVD specifications are concerned hence are more likely to fail playing back mixed content correctly because in many cases they're getting the information from the IFO but do not interpret the title's own header.

Therefore, to be on the safe side, it's always better to use multiple VTSs for mixed projects.

@Peter: As I've never tried a mixed DVD using DVDA can you please do me a favour and have a look at yours whether by chance there is any additional VTS? If so I'd say that DVDA added it on its own and if not I'd say you're lucky ;)

Hope that helps.

Cheers

darkframe

PeterWright wrote on 6/26/2009, 1:21 AM

Hi darkframe

I'm not sure what I'm looking for, but inside the VIDEO_TS folder are:

VIDEO_TS.BUP
VIDEO_TS.IFO
VIDEO_TS.VOB

Followed by a set of FOUR files:

VTS_01_0.BUP
VTS_01_0.IFO
VTS_01_0.VOB
VTS_01_1.VOB

Then there are 18 sets (nos.02 to 19) of 3 files, like this:

VTS_02_0.BUP
VTS_02_0.IFO
VTS_02_1.VOB

So the set of four above is the only one with a VOB with a "0" before the prefix, but it seems all DVDs are like that

So, not sure if that helps - it's confused me!

TOG62 wrote on 6/26/2009, 2:27 AM

I've been following this thread with interest and also puzzlement. I often include titles with different aspect ratios, generally with a widescreen menu. They play fine on several hardware players.

I can remember reading several threads on the issue that said the only limitation is that all menus must have the same aspect ratio.

Mike

darkframe wrote on 6/27/2009, 2:29 PM

Hi Peter,

thanks a lot! Yes indeed, that helps :)

The VIDEO_TS stuff is containing the so-called Video Manager, which is a kind of main command bridge for all DVDs. E.g. the information for any First Play title can be found here (and mor stuff of course, like information about the title sets -> VTS)..

VTS_01 to VTS_19 indicate that there are 19 title sets on the DVD. Each may have its own aspect ratio and audio sequence. Audio sequence in this context means that all titles within the same title set have to be identical regarding audio tracks. Let's say you've got two clips which come with WAV stereo audio and an additional Dolby 5.1 track. In case track 1 of clip 1 is WAV stereo and the second track is 5.1, clip 2 has to follow the same rule. You could not use 5.1 for clip 2 in the first track and the stereo portion in the second track in this case.

Anyhow, as there are lots of VTSs on your DVD that tells me that it is a multiple VTS disk, containg at least 19 movies. In case you authored it with DVDA I'd say that DVDA created a new title set for each movie, hence mixing of aspect ratios is fully legal and compliant with the specifications. Hmm, have got to try it on my own. Haven't been creating DVDs for quite some time and actually I'm so much used to DVDLab that I've not yet really looked into DVDA.

BTW: Having no VOB with a 0 prefix only means that there's no visible menu for that title set. There is a menu nevertheless, even if it is a dummy only doing simply nothing. Well, the DVD specifications do not allow for the complete absence of menu entries so that's why there are VTS_xx_0.IFOs, which were created by the authoring application. Those VTS_xx_0.IFOs contain the menu information table and it will be there whether you've actually created a menu or not.

As said above, all BUP files are backups of the IFOs of the same name. The IFOs contain all relevant information about the clips (titles) within the title set of the same number. VIDEO_TS.IFO contains all relevant information about all title sets (and more).

Here's quite some valuable information about the IFOs. Well, actually it's valuable information for programmers but it might give you and others a good overview of what's the secret behind IFOs ;)

Cheers

darkframe

MPM wrote on 7/1/2009, 2:31 PM

"it fits the 4:3 inside the 16:9 project, therefore creating black bars on both top, bottom and sides of the video."

"TheHappyFriar,
I would think the DVD players would show this correctly, but they are not! I have tested in 3 DVD players and a PS3, and it shows incorrectly in all of them."

No matter what, DVD players are rather dumb devices, following whatever flags are set in the mpg2, using player defaults when flags are missing. A DVD sets the aspect for the menus, & DVDA won't let you mix & match those -- you have to edit the DVD DVDA spits out, adding another, higher level. A DVD lists the preferred video handling, as in letterbox, pan & scan, wide etc., but never had (or heard of) a problem with DVDA causing any problems there... DVDA's boilerplate scripts are designed to use 4:3 & 16:9 video (not menus) interchangeably, & AFAIK many players ignore that preference anyway. In a nutshell they just put out a NTSC or PAL signal that the TV's responsible for displaying, letterboxing (or not). In theory you could try to change mpg2 flags for the menu backgrounds, but not if you want to comply with the DVD specs -- IOW if it even worked on 1 player, I wouldn't count on it working on player # 2 or #3.

You can write your own script to set the player's video mode [separate from the preferred display mode] -- it will then generally stay in that mode until you tell it different, either through another script or by using the remote -- but this is something *you* have to do & it may or may not over-ride the player's own settings... FWIW video mode is detected & set by one of the std DVD variables, but, players often have more modes than there are std codes for the variable. It is possible, & in fact common for DVD menus to be designed Widescreen, but compatible with Pan & Scan so you get working full screen displays whatever the TV aspect... you can see this with most commercial DVDs where the buttons & any action are very much centered. DVDA won't help you though -- the problem is the button highlight placement, since DVDA won't create a Pan & Scan menu sub-picture track. [If you want to try it, create a duplicate menu, setting the button areas & highlights more or less by trial & error, combined with a script to set the video mode to P & S. It'll work, but what a PITA!]

That said, in my experience the hardware mode setting is more often responsible for framed video. Widescreen TVs have their own settings, which can (& usually do) over-ride everything else. And/Or video can well be screwed up. An older free program called ReStream can quickly give you the details on internal m2v flags, & reset if necessary. A simple test is to play [in this case 4:3] video by itself & see what you get. You can either render a no-menu DVD or play the m2v/mpg in software. DVDA can render 4:3 menu backgrounds in a 16:9 project incorrectly, depending on what options you've chosen for stretching it can do bars on 4 sides... I've heard of people with video in a menu instead of a title... perhaps DVDA can encode title video the same way, using wrong settings, but I've never tried to render a title in DVDA so no idea personally.