I shot a fashion over the weekend in sd widescreen. My plan is for the final dvd to be in the widescreen format (16x9). My question: if this is a widescreen dvd project how will a regular tv (4x3) handle this when played in a dvd player? Will the dvd player automatically scale the dvd to fit the 4x3 screen by letterboxing it? My concern is for people without widescreen tv's, not being able to watch it in the proper aspect ratio.

Thanks in advance for any tips and suggestions.

Regards

There is a menu setting in every DVD player where the user can set the aspect ratio of the TV to which the player is hooked up. It normally defaults to 4x3 and you only have to change it if your player is hooked up to a 16x9 display. Assuming that this is set correctly then, yes, the DVD player will display your 16x9 program properly letterboxed on a 4x3 display.

Also, most DVD Authoring software will be able to give you an option on how the player handles widescreen on a 4:3 TV. I use DVDLab to make my DVD's (not DVDA) and they have options on the project so you can either "let the player decide", "show the video letterboxed" or "show the video cropped"
I personally think that most people are used to seeing letterboxed widescreen on their 4:3 TV as a black bar above and below the picture is something thye have come to accept! If you crop then make sure that any titles are within a 4:3 safe area not 16:9

Chris

On most 4x3 televisions it should just show the 16x9 picture as letterboxed. Almost all the movies I put into my player do this, professionally made or not.

thanks guys for your responses. Much appreciated.

Regards