Widescreen Playback on 16:9 TV

[msges]

I am a new Toast 8 user and am having a problem with the playback of a widescreen dvd I made using Toast 8. The DVD plays fine on my Mac using DVD Player displayin the proper widescreen format. Also, while in DVD Player I use the "Disc Info" command and it states that it is 16:9 aspect, with the menu stating 4:3. However, when I play it back on a dvd player it does not display correctly on the TV. The TV and the DVD player are both set to 16:9, but the picture appears to be stretched and it cuts off a little off the top and bottom and more on the sides. The DVD player is a brand new Sony, and the TV is a Widescreen Sony, but a few years old.

 

I made the movie in Final Cut Express using the Anomorphic DV setting, and exported it to a Quicktime movie, and then brought it into Toast 8.

 

I have played around with the settings on the DVD player and the TV, but it still does not display correctly. Not sure if there is something wrong with the way I made the DVD, or with the way the DVD player is reading the DVD. Just to make the problem more interesting, I tried playing it through a new XBox 360, and it displays it on the same TV in a stretched Letterbox with the sides cut off.

 

Any help and advice would be appreciated.

[tsantee]

Was the video shot with a camera that has an anamorphic lens?

 

I believe what happened is that Toast did not set the widescreen "flag" properly in the DVD's IFO file. This can be fixed using the application MyDVDEdit. You'll need to copy the VIDEO_TS folder to your hard drive and then change the folder's permissions to Read & Write for its entire contents. This is done through the Get Info window.

 

Open MyDVDEdit and open the VIDEO_TS. Select the first VTS title set and click the IFO button in the middle of the window. There you'll see an aspect ratio popup. Select the last one which is something like 16:9 and letterbox and pan & scan. Save the file. If it already is that setting then I'm mistaken about the cause of the problem. You can click the preview window to see the effect of changing the aspect ratio setting.

 

If that fixes the problem you can burn the edited VIDEO_TS folder to DVD using the DVD video from VIDEO_TS setting in the Video window or by choosing DVD-Rom (UDF) in the Data window.

[tsantee]

You did it right. I was mistaken in some of the terms. Since that's not the problem I need to think about this some more. You could try changing the aspect ratio so that it is only 16:9 rather than the combination. The letterbox and pan & scan settings are only used when playing on a 4:3 screen.

[msges]

I dragged the DVD to the Toast Media Browser, and the information shows:

Video: MPEG-2;720 x 480; 29.97fps

 

Is 720 x 480 correct for 16:9? Shouldn't it be something like 853 x 480? I get confused on this whole issue. Could this have something to do with the FCE Anomorphic setting?

[msges]

Gave the 16:9 a try, but same result: fine on the computer but not on the TV. Thanks for taking the time to assist me, this is a frustrating problem!

[tsantee]

720x480 is correct. The picture is vertically stretched (some say horizontally squeezed) to fill the 720x480 frame. The DVD player then reformats the video during playback to fit a 16:9 frame. This is what is meant by anamorphic.

 

The thumbnail image in the Toast window should show the widescreen frame. If it looks like a squeezed 4:3 image then Toast didn't recognize it as 16:9. In that case you need to go the the Custom Encoder settings window and foce 16:9 as the aspect ration before Toast authors a VIDEO_TS folder as part of creating a disc image or burning a DVD.

[msges]

Thanks for the quick response.

 

The movie contains a combination of still photos and video shot with an HD camcorder that I converted to DV when I imported into Final Cut Express. I am using the Anamorphic setting in FCE as I understand it is the only way to get a widescreen movie in the Standard Definition. I am not using HD settings in FCE as it seems that converting from HD to SD when burning the DVD results in a bigger loss of quality then simply using SD throughout the project.

 

One Question: Where do I find the application "myDVDedit"?

 

Thanks for the help!

[tsantee]

Thanks for the quick response.

 

The movie contains a combination of still photos and video shot with an HD camcorder that I converted to DV when I imported into Final Cut Express. I am using the Anamorphic setting in FCE as I understand it is the only way to get a widescreen movie in the Standard Definition. I am not using HD settings in FCE as it seems that converting from HD to SD when burning the DVD results in a bigger loss of quality then simply using SD throughout the project.

 

One Question: Where do I find the application "myDVDedit"?

 

Thanks for the help!

MyDVDEdit is available as a donation-ware application at www.mydvdedit.com.

 

My brother has had what I believe is the same problem you're experiencing. He also uses FCE. He shot the video with an anamorphic lens on a high-end Panasonic SD camcorder. The workaround I described is the only way we could get it to work out. The nice thing is that it doesn't require re-encoding the video. It's just an edit to the IFO. My brother now chooses Save as Disc Image, mounts the image file and drags the VIDEO_TS to his hard drive for editing.

 

By the way, Toast can accept HD video sources and will do the resampling necessary to make it standard definition. I don't know if that will make any difference when you do a similar project.

[tsantee]

Gave the 16:9 a try, but same result: fine on the computer but not on the TV. Thanks for taking the time to assist me, this is a frustrating problem!

I know you've already tried different settings with the DVD player and TV but I can't think of any other explanation for this. The aspect ratio is correct in the IFO and the scaling looks correct in the MyDVDEdit preview and on the Mac. I'm wondering how the DVD plays on someone else's widescreen TV.

 

Another thing you could try is to extract the MPEG from the DVD using the Toast Media Browser by dragging the title to the Video window (with DVD video selected as the format). Now set up the menu the way you want and burn a new disc with a newly authored VIDEO_TS. Maybe this one will work. I'm presuming that Toast will show the extracted MPEG as a properly scaled 16:9 video.

[msges]

Thanks.

 

I downloaded MyDVDEdit, and opened the Video_TS. In the upper left window I clicked on VTS 1, and in the lower center window the screen gave me the tabs of DVD, VTS 1, and PGC 1. The VTS 1 tab had the aspect ratio option you mentioned, but not the IFO choice you mentioned. The aspect ratio was already set to 16:9 Auto Pan&Scan Letterbox. It shows perfectly in the preview window.

 

I did not use an anormorphic lens, but have a mix of native 16:9 clips (from an HD Camera) and 4:3 clips (which show with the black bars on the sides, which is fine for this project). I used the anormorphic option in FCE because I wanted 16:9 and the discussion forums there indicated the way to get the best quality DVD's was to use the same settings end to end instead of converting during the burning process.

 

Not sure what to try next.