I need to put some of my 16:9 video projects on DVD for people who have 4:3 TVs.

I have exported the video from Premiere in Microsoft DV AVI - the frame size is locked into 720x480 because of the DV AVI compressor and I set the pixel aspect ratio to "D1/DV NTSC Widescreen 16:9 (1.2)"

I'm using TMPGenc for mpeg encoding and I'm not sure what settings to use if I want to have it flagged for DVD players to letterbox it. I have 2 aspect ratio options for encoding, "16:9 (525 lines) NTSC" and "16:9 display".

Any suggetions?

admins - sorry, i wasn't sure where to put this

The flagging depends on the software you're using to author the DVD. I use DVD Maestro which has a little, almost unnoticeable if you're not looking for it, switch between 4:3 and 16:9. It would help if you could say what software you're using to author the disc.



mg

oops - I was under the impression if the mpeg file was flagged correctly the burning software wouldn't matter. I'm using a program called "myDVD" by Sonic.

That depends, Bret. I doubt myDVD will support 16:9 projects.

All you need in the end is fully working 16:9 pipeline. A DVD
player (if setup correctly!) will do the job of letterboxing your
16:9 footage for a 4:3 TV.

Just edit in 16:9, render to MPEG2 in 16:9 and author your disc
in 16:9. Then all should be well.

thanks

I've been looking into getting better software than what came with the drive. How is DVD Maestro? I want something with a good amount of control over how the DVD is set up, but at the same time, not too complicated to use.

Either I'm mixing up products or Maestro is discontinued. It was
very difficult to use as well I believe. Try taking a look at Sonic's
DVDit!, ReelDVD or DVD Producer (http://www.sonic.com/products/default.asp) and perhaps Sony's DVD Architect 2 (http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com)
(Comes with the new Vegas 5)

I believe you can download demo's for all of them. Sonic has a
page up listing the differences in their products.

You're right. Maestro is discontinued and it is slightly difficult to use. But there are some good how-to's out there for it. If you're new to DVD authoring, I'd advise you to go with something simpler.



mg

Rob-
do all those support 16:9?

DVD Architect does. DVD Producer will certainly. I'm not sure about
ReelDVD and DVDit! (probably they will). Just go to the sonic
site and check the (technical) specifications. If it supports 16:9
it will list it.