Mixing 4:3 & 16:9 in a project with 16:9 menu

klgood1 wrote on 1/14/2011, 7:40 AM
I apologize in advance for asking this, because I'm sure it's been answered somewhere here on the forums many years ago, but I can't seem to find an answer by searching.

I'm trying to use DVDA 5.0 to author a DVD with a 16:9 WS menu, and with two video files, one 4:3 and another 16:9 WS. This is my first time mixing both formats on a DVD, and I'm trying to make sure it will be played correctly on 4:3 and 16:9 TV's.

It seems to play fine on widescreen sets, and previews fine in DVDA, but on 4:3 TV's (and when I switch the preview in DVDA to 4:3), it's playing the 4:3 content with bars on the side AND top. Is there something in the project settings that will force a DVD player to play the 4:3 video correctly on a 4:3 set, or do I have to switch to a 4:3 menu?

Comments

Sonata wrote on 1/14/2011, 7:56 AM
If I am incorrect about this, I hope someone lets us know, but I am pretty sure that when you author a DVD with DVD-A, the *whole DVD* is going to be authored in either in 16:9 or 4:3 format; it can't be both at the same time.

So, if you author the DVD as 16:9, that is why your 16:9 video looks great while your 4:3 video doesn't. You would have to author the DVD as 4:3 to get your 4:3 video to look correct, but then your 16:9 video would look wrong.

But why your 4:3 video has bars on the top and sides leads to other questions, I think.
klgood1 wrote on 1/14/2011, 12:03 PM
My 4:3 video has letterboxing on top & sides because the DVD player is playing it back like a WS video, even though it's 4:3. Also, I thought you could mix 16:9 & 4:3 videos -- don't commercial DVD's do that?
Former user wrote on 1/14/2011, 6:02 PM
You can mix 4x3 and 16x9 on the same DVD. How it plays is determined by how your DVD is setup.

There is usually a menu to play widescreen DVD either as Letterbox, or 4x3 cropped or pan and scan. I would check your DVD setup first

Dave T2
johnmeyer wrote on 1/15/2011, 1:54 PM
You got the bars on the top AND the side of your 4:3 video because you encoded it as 16:9 rather than 4:3.

If you are going to mix 4:3 and 16:9 video in the same DVD (which I do all the time) simply encode ALL your video in Vegas rather than DVDA. This is the preferred workflow for dozens of other reasons, so ALWAYS do it this way. So, in Vegas, choose the DVD Architect MPEG-2 template when encoding 4:3 material, and choose the DVD Architect Widescreen MPEG-2 template when encoding 16:9 material. Then, put these MPEG-2 files, along with the corresponding AC-3 audio files, into your DVD Architect project. It doesn't matter whether you set the DVDA project to 4:3 or 16:9 because this setting will now only affect the menus. Your DVD player will always switch between 16:9 and 4:3 as it plays. The menus are just another MPEG-2 files, so it will switch to the correct format for the menus as well.

If you ever want to see if you have encoded something correctly, here is a hint: put the encoded MPEG-2 or VOB file back onto the Vegas timeline and then open the pan/crop dialog for that media. You should not see ANY black bars in the pan/crop dialog. If you DO see black bars, then you have forgotten to encode the video in the format which matches the source video (which is what you always want to do).
klgood1 wrote on 1/17/2011, 8:29 AM
John, thanks for the tips. I think that's what happened -- I rendered the 16:9 file in Vegas, and let DVDA render the 4:3 file, so I'll try rendering in Vegas first.