Creating a 16:9 DVD?

S

stidle

Active member
I'm sure this question has been asked before (if so, please point me to a previous thread), but:

My friend and I shot a short film this weekend that I wanted to put onto DVD. We used the anamorphic adaptor and set the DVX at 24pA, so we edited it at 16:9 aspect ratio on a 23.98 timeline in Final Cut...

...When I imported the project into DVD Studio Pro, I checked the "16:9 Letterbox" box in the film's Information Window, presumably so that the DVD would play in letterbox mode when the DVD was played on a standard 4:3 television.

We played it on a standard television and it looked fine -- letterboxed, ratio seemed about right...

...but when I try to play it on my 16:9 native projector with the projector in 16:9 mode, it just further compresses the picture rather than expanding it -- as if the film was saved onto the DVD as letterboxed 4:3 rather than native 16:9 with the option of letterboxing on a 4:3 TV...like it's just horizontally stretched, which looks horrible.

What am I doing wrong? I want my DVD to use full 16:9 resolution.
 
I'll refer to you page 50 in the on-line DVDSP user manual.

Don't use Letterbox, it places black bars on top and bottom. If your source is true anamorphic, use the 16:9 setting, not letterbox. It has to do with the format of your SOURCE material, not how you "want" it to display, is one way to think about it.
 
Yes, I realize that. As I said, I used an anamorphic adapter, so of course I didn't shoot with the camera in letterbox mode.

What I'm saying is that there is a menu option in DVD Studio Pro that determines what a DVD player will "decide" is the correct way to display 16:9 footage on a 4:3 screen -- i.e. Pan&Scan or Letterbox. It's not that the actual footage is letterboxed, it's that the footage is set to be DISPLAYED in letterbox format, IF the viewing screen is 4:3.

My problem is that the DVD is staying in letterbox mode even when I have the player hooked up to a 16:9 projector.

I think it's just that my DVD player is a piece of crap, though, in retrospect.
 
From the Apple website:

You can create 16:9 widescreen DVDs in both DVD Studio Pro and iDVD 5. On a widescreen television, the video image will fill the entire 16:9 screen. If you play a widescreen DVD on a player connected to a standard 4:3 TV, the widescreen image should be presented "letterboxed," with black bars appearing above and below the width of the image to preserve the aspect ratio. However, some DVD players may not display widescreen DVDs (created in DVD Studio Pro or iDVD 5) in the correct letterbox presentation on a 4:3 TV or monitor.

What I'm having is the opposite problem to this. It's not that the footage is NOT showing up letterboxed on a 4:3 television, it's that the image IS showing up letterboxed on a 16:9 television -- even though in DVD Studio Pro, I have clicked the "16:9" option, and the image is clearly in 16:9 in the preview window.
 
I've seen this problem when folks use the Letterbox option in DVDSP. It should not happen if you select Pan&Scan and your footage is true 16:9. Did you try the "16:9 Pan/Scan and Letterbox" option for your video track in DVDSP?

Also, page 50 on in the on-line DVDSP user manual gives you all the info on this. It does state that some set-top players don't read the aspect ratio data properly. So, try it on some other players first.
 
I have just had this problem myself. Turned out in FCP I hadn't ticked the Anamorphic check box in the sequence's settings.

Worth checking.
 
I checked 16:9 Letterbox, but not 16:9 Letterbox/PanScan in DVDSP. I wonder if that matters...I'll try again when I get home from work.

I think I almost definitely hit the Anamorphic box in the Sequences section of FCP, because would I have had to render all of my material in process of editing if I hadn't?
 
Yes, Letterbox and Pan/Scan are VERY different function. Letterbox places the black bars, period, no matter what you play it on.
 
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