how do I create a widescreen DVD?

[pants10]

Ok, I just upgraded from roxio easy CD creator 6 to media creator 9. So far I am happy, exept now I can't make Widescreen movies anymore.

 

I import widescreen video into myDVD, and it seems to work. The preview is in widescreen and even the image of the DVD has widescreen. When I play it on my Widescreen TV/moniter it plays just fine.

 

BUT!! when I put it on any full screen DVD player (I have tried my PS2 and my sony DVD player, as well as my girlfriends DVD player which first spotted the issue) it cuts off the sides. Now, normally I would not care very much, but I am creating these videos myself and I have text on the sides that are now being cut off. In edition I put the time and dates along the very bottem of the screen because my widescreen TV does not cut it off, and I expect any other screen for me to view it upon to be full screen (aka, has the two black bars on the top and bottem, allowing the bottem edge to be visable).

 

I can't change the video now because they have been long since compiled, and I have given away all the old copies I own (with the idea that I could create new ones).

 

So, how do I force widescreen? how can I have those black bars at the bottem on my full screen TVs so I don't cut half of the screen off. I know it is Roxio, because every DVD I have created prior to changing to 9 still works... just the new ones created with 9 have this problem.

 

 

can anybody help?

[pants10]

MyDVD creates true anamorphic widescreen meaning that the files do not have the black bars encoded. Playback then depends on the settings of the DVD Player. When played back on a 4:3 TV set, the DVD player should automatically add the black bars. Check the DVD player settings and make sure it is set to letterbox.

 

is there a way to create non-anamorphic widescreen?

 

I considered that too, that perhaps it was a setting on the player, but none of the DVD players (exept maybe the one on my widescreen TV, which plays correctly) have such a setting.

 

They are old DVD players, and I want to force the black bars if nessisary. Is there perhaps then a setting in the rendering process that needs changing?

 

 

Update: I looked further in the screen options seeking the word letterbox. and I have discovered that both my DVD players are set to letterbox. which would be why other widescreen DVDs work, yes?

 

I am looking to change the myDVD setting to force that widescreen. My easy CD creator 6 does it, and my friend's Nero does it. So I don't see why media creator 9 would have a problem (and creating a DVD to give to my friend to create another DVD is far too many wasted DVDs, and creator 6 can't make working DVD images larger then 4GB)

[giorgio83]

hi... I realized I have the same issue too... and I am wondering if the Menu options have to do with it??

[ggrussell]

You would need to add the widescreen video to a 4:3 Videowave project. This way the black bars would the encoded into the final render. Then add the Videowave project to a MyDVD project to create the disc.

 

My DVD player has 3 settings: Letterbox, Pan/Scan and Widescreen. To show a true anamorphic 16:9 video on a 4:3 TV, the setting should be on 'letterbox'. If you have a widescreen TV, then the setting in teh DVD player should be on 'widescreen'.

 

Pan/scan will show the widescreen on 4:3 TV and then pan back a forth according to the action. This doesn't always work well on my player. I never really use it anyway.

[pants10]

ok... I can now add black bars, I am annoyed that it takes so many steps... and this only partially solves my problem.

 

ok, now I can add 1 widescreen video. If I try to add more, it just overrides the previous movies added (like, say I import 3 "productions" to MyDVD, rather then getting the 3 movies, I get 3 links to the same movie. Like, it does not seem to understand having more then one Videowave production in a movie.

 

on that subject (they might be the same problem) is there a faster way to create videowave projects then having to save and close your project everytime you want to add a movie? Like, is there a button in MyDVD that will open Videowave again without having to close my project? and the last thing I want to do is wait for it to re-encode the video, add it to the DVD, and be forced to wait for it to re-encode again when I could do it in one motion.

 

a usage question: if you have say, 4 videos in Videowave, and you import it. Is it possible to have them count as seprerate videos (this could save me the trouble of trying to create more then one production and having all but 1 not work)

 

 

 

re-aprouching my first issue... I continued to try to fiddle with just having the "widescreen" recognised by the DVD players so that they would know to letter box it (my DVD players have "4:3 letterbox" and "widescreen" as options. and are all on "4:3 letterbox"). [ADDED: My girlfriend DVD player apparently senses to see if widescreen is an option, and it detects that the DVD I gave her only has full screen on it, so it can't change the display with that DVD in at all.]

 

To my programing side, it would apear that the DVDs are not coded right to let the DVD players know that they need to switch to a letterbox format when they go to the widescreen video (again, all other widescreen DVD other then what Roxio 9 creates don't have this problem, including store bought DVDs that I can ensure are also true anamorphic widescreen). So I tried having ONLY 16:9 videos with a 16:9 menu (thinking perhaps that if the menu was 16:9 it would solve the problem because the screen would never been in 4:3 in the first place) but then I recieved an "error encoding menu".

[giorgio83]

Does new movies playback ok? I haven't heard of a DVD player not supporting it. What are the settings in your DVD Player? Most have 3: letterbox, pan/scan and widescreen. If you have a regular 4:3 TV, then it should be set for letterbox.

 

well, my DVD player setting is on letterbox for 4:3 tv out... I wonder why it doesn't work... though it work if I watch it on my PC

 

Does new movies playback ok? I haven't heard of a DVD player not supporting it. What are the settings in your DVD Player? Most have 3: letterbox, pan/scan and widescreen. If you have a regular 4:3 TV, then it should be set for letterbox.

 

well, my DVD player setting is on letterbox for 4:3 tv out... I wonder why it doesn't work... though it work if I watch it on my PC

[pants10]

ok... lets start over.

 

 

I have 5 widescreen recordings. I want to make a DVD out of them. I want them to play on any DVD player set to "4:3 letterbox" so that there are black bars along the top and bottem of the screen as to reduce the amount of picture lost (naturally the TV cuts a little off). My DVD should work like any other proffesional DVD with wide screen video, and I don't want all 5 movies lumped into 1 option on my menu (I want to be able to pick between them)

 

help me do this.

[ggrussell]

To my programing side, it would apear that the DVDs are not coded right to let the DVD players know that they need to switch to a letterbox format when they go to the widescreen video

The video is either 4:3 or 16:9. That's it. Personally, I have not had a problem with any 16:9 discs that I have created. I even tested having a 4:3 menu and 16:9 video, and that worked fine on all the DVD players including an el cheapo Cyberhome player. I would suspect the DVD player.

 

Ok, for your question:

I would create and render all files in videowave. You will end up with five MPEG 2 files that are then placed in MyDVD. That way MyDVD would only have to render the menu and you will have five buttons on the main menu.

 

But to do this, will take some planning ahead. How long is the total amount of time for all 5 videos? Make sure you render the files in Videowave accordingly so MyDVD will not re-render later.

[ggrussell]

No, you can create a MyDVD project with 4:3 menu and add a 16:9 video. That works just fine.

Make sure the VIDEO is 16:9. If you aren't sure, you can use something like GSpot that reads the video file info. GSpot will display info abou thte video like video and audio bitrates, aspect ratio, interlace/progressive, etc. Best of all, it's free! Just use you fav search engine to find a download.

[karcreat]

Ok...

I have attempted numerous times to create a letterbox DVD from an AVI, and all I keep getting is a 'pan and scan' version (tho no panning or scanning occurs, just th edges of the picture are cropped)...

 

I have read all the posts on this issue, and NOTHING seems to work.

 

First off, I made sure our player was set to LETTERBOX (it was, and store rented DVDs in letterbox play just fine)...

 

 

Second, I do NOT have an option anywhere to choose letterbox over pan and scan...the options screen mentioned that has this feature does NOT appear in my version of Roxio (V9, by the way in My DVD)

 

The closest I get is a screen under Project Settings... you get a screen that, on the right side, allows you to switch from 'Default Encoding Settings' to Video: 720x480' which I also tried...no luck, same thing.

 

I see that a lot of the advice given here seems to apply to a DIFFERENT Roxio product than I seem to have, as I mentioned, the menu options sometimes given in the repsonses are NOT available in my version...why is this?

 

Can ANYONE here offer any advice on what I can do to get a letterbox/widescreen DVD working??

As I mentioned, I have Roxio MyDVD 9 (build 900B881 ENU) and the original Divx AVI Im using has screen dimensions of 608x352 (which has worked, letterbox wise, when I attempt to use crummy 'ol Nero to make a DVD...but Nero always gets the sound 'off' about half way thru the burn, so its out of synch...Roxio (Sonic) NEVER did that, but didnt take Divx until this V9 I installed)...

 

ANY help will be MOST appreciated, I waited and waited to upgrade to this V9 of MyDVD just to make these letterbox DVDs, and this is driving me NUTS!...

 

Thanks!

K

[giorgio83]

well, my video is 16:9 ratio but when playing back on TV it's the same problem... it turn out to be pan and scan... or maybe my DVD player doesn't support true anamorphic

[pants10]

hmm.... I am satisfied with the results

 

 

 

just one more videowave question... is there a way to set up like some sort of batch conversion that will add the bars to the top and bottem? There is a batch convent feature in the media converter thing, is there one for video wave (like, convert multiple files into multiple files by the same name)

 

if not, then that is fine. I like the converter for otherstuff anyway.

 

my new DVDs are working... I will continue to fiddle with the ones that would not play widescreen to help find out why it is an issue

[ggrussell]

Does new movies playback ok? I haven't heard of a DVD player not supporting it. What are the settings in your DVD Player? Most have 3: letterbox, pan/scan and widescreen. If you have a regular 4:3 TV, then it should be set for letterbox.

[ggrussell]

Second, I do NOT have an option anywhere to choose letterbox over pan and scan...the options screen mentioned that has this feature does NOT appear in my version of Roxio (V9, by the way in My DVD)

Don't confuse what the software does vs what the DVD player SHOULD do. By default, MyDVD will create TRUE ANAMORPHIC widescreen - which means the 'black bars' is NOT encoded into the video. In this case, the DVD PLAYER must be set to 'letterbox' on a 4:3 TV to be viewed correctly. If you have a widescreen TV, then the DVD PLAYER must be set to widescreen.

 

If this isn't working correctly, you should look at the file that you are burning.

 

Now if you want to FORCE MyDVD to create the letterbox for you, you have to start with Videowave.

Create a 4:3 Videowave project

Add your 16:9 video file

Save the project

Open MyDVD and then add the Videowave project and burn.

[ggrussell]

No batch conversion that I know.

[ggrussell]

MyDVD creates true anamorphic widescreen meaning that the files do not have the black bars encoded. Playback then depends on the settings of the DVD Player. When played back on a 4:3 TV set, the DVD player should automatically add the black bars. Check the DVD player settings and make sure it is set to letterbox.