Problems with aspect ratio on players after burn

[kreum]

My issue is as follows:

I exported video in Mpeg2 from Final Cut Pro to be put on a dvd for display in a museum. I used toast 6 to burn the DVD. I tested the dvd on a PC, my G5, and my Sony DVD player. The image was fine. I then took the DVD to the client. He has an older, No-name Player. When the dvd played it showed in 4:3 when it should be playing in 16:9.

I returned home to try and remedy the problem. I pulled out my old Citizen DVD player and it displayed the video in the same way, 4:3.

 

I wondered if this could have been caused by the menu, which is 4:3, and the player just configures to the aspect ratio of whatever appears on screen first, but this was incorrect. I burned a second copy without the menu. It still plays in 4:3 on the 2 players.

 

The 2 disks were burned as DVD-video (NTSC), then a third as a DVD-rom (udf) and nothing seems change how the old DVD players are displaying the disk.

 

Have I done something wrong in my Export (Footage was shot on a HD camera in 16:9, transfered and edited in 16:9, and exported as such), my Burn on Toast, or is this just a problem that is going to plague me with older DVD players and dvdr?

[tsantee]

The way widescreen DVDs are authored is there is an instruction in the IFO for how it will play back depending on the settings of a DVD Player. The player can be set for 16x9, for letterbox 4:3, or for pan & scan (cropping off both sides) 4:3. My guess is those two DVD players are set to pan & scan widescreen video. Check the player's video set up.

 

Toast 6 can sometimes get aspect ratios wrong, but it doesn't sound like that happened this time because it plays correctly on some players.

[kreum]

Thank you, Tsantee. That definately was the problem.

 

Is there a way to burn so that the DVD player will always play in the letterbox format (like a comercial dvd released in "widescreen") or will I have to go back to my project and put it into 4:3 and add the bars.?

 

Thank you for you help

[tsantee]

The way widescreen DVDs are authored is there is an instruction in the IFO for how it will play back depending on the settings of a DVD Player. The player can be set for 16x9, for letterbox 4:3, or for pan & scan (cropping off both sides) 4:3. My guess is those two DVD players are set to pan & scan widescreen video. Check the player's video set up.

 

Toast 6 can sometimes get aspect ratios wrong, but it doesn't sound like that happened this time because it plays correctly on some players.

Toast does one of two things. If it believes the video is 4:3 it sets the "flag" in the IFO as 4:3. If it believes it is 16:9 it sets the flag as 16x9, 4:3 letterbox and pan & scan so the player has to decide what to do with it. There are other possible flag settings, but not through Toast.

 

There is a donor-ware application called MyDVDEdit that allows you to change the IFO aspect ratio setting. What I do in this case is use Toast to Save as Disc Image. I mount the disc image and copy the VIDEO_TS folder to the hard drive. Next, I select the copied folder and choose Get Info. There I change the permissions for the folder and its entire contents from read only to read & write. Now I can change the IFO settings with MyDVDEdit. When done I can burn the VIDEO_TS to DVD using the DVD video from VIDEO_TS setting in the Toast Video window.

 

Notice that I didn't explain how to use MyDVDEdit. It's difficult to explain but if you explore enough things you will find where that change is made.