Letterboxing A Dvd From Hd

[Lawrence of Berkley]

I am trying to make a letterboxed Standard Definition DVD from from an HD file. Starting with an Apple ProRes HD video file, Toast makes a very good looking SD DVD. The widescreen image is squeezed in left-right (anamorphic). When played back from a DVD player onto a 16:9 LCD TV it comes out perfect. However, I'd also like to make a letterboxed version of the footage, so it would play back on older 4:3 CRT monitors. I tried setting 4:3 and 16:9 in Video>DVD-Video>Options>More>Encoding>Aspect Ratio>16:9 4:3 Automatic. 16:9 and 4:3 both produced anamorphic squeezed DVD's. IS there a setting that would create a letterboxed DVD?

[theoldarchiver]

However, I'd also like to make a letterboxed version of the footage, so it would play back on older 4:3 CRT monitors.

There is no need to create a separate version for that purpose. Any set top DVD player can output a letterboxed 4:3 signal from an anamorphic widescreen DVD. Just go to the video settings of the DVD player to let it know a 4:3 monitor is attached, and prefer "letterboxed" (over "pan&scan" or "full frame squeezed").

 

(Every well-authored DVD title has an aspect ratio setting that is one of:

• 4:3 (content is tagged as 4:3, should be displayed pillarboxed on 16:9)

• 16:9 (content is tagged as 16:9, display on 4:3 is undefined)

• 16:9 auto Pan&Scan (content is tagged as 16:9, but should be displayed full height on 4:3, cutting off the sides)

• 16:9 auto Letterbox (content is tagged as 16:9, and should be letterboxed on 4:3)

• 16:9 auto Pan&Scan and Letterbox (Toast does this for 16:9) (always follow DVD player a.r. settings)

The VTS aspect ratio setting overrides the aspect ratio flag in the MPEG stream if present, meaning you can easily fix wrong a.r. movies. This setting is stored in the IFO file. You could edit a DVD's a.r. with MyDVDEdit for each feature.)