Change Aspect Ratio without recoding

[jongear]

My Philips DVDR 75 seems to make all recordings in 4:3 aspect ratio, regardless of source ratio (e.g. 16:9 from satellite). This is not a problem when playing back its recordings on Televisions/DVD players where one can manually change the ratio, but on others (including laptop's Power DVD) , it is.
I can achieve conversion (from 4:3 to 16:9) by recoding DVD entirely (e.g. using Nero Vision Express), but wondered if there is a simpler, quicker solution by editing .ifo files (where aspect ratio info seems to be stored). Is there any software (prefrably free) that can achieve this (e.g. Ifoedit?) and, if so, how?

[setarip]

"My Philips DVDR 75 seems to make all recordings in 4:3 aspect ratio, regardless of source ratio"

If, in fact, that is actually what's happening ('though I doubt it):

I know that WinDVD's floating menu includes "Display" - which allows you to change the format. I've got to believe that PowerDVD, which is similar in so many ways, also has such a function available...

[jongear]

Need to change inherent format

Power DVD only seems to have flakey aspect ratio control - I could buy an add-on or change player (or I can remove keep aspect ratio check mark & drag corners)- yet problem would still be on other systems (e.g. my daughters PlayStation).

Recordings are in 4:3 regardless of source - this has been verified (eg. by IfoEdit). If I recode the recordings, it takes about 4 hours (and I can loose some quality). Yet I can copy a DVD in less than half an hour without recoding. I am therefore eager to find a solution where only the aspect ratio is altered (by editing the ifo file?)

I am sure that this must be possible.

[jongear]

Eurika

I've found how to use ifoedit to change aspect ratio, that works on some players. In case others have this issue: (once recording is copied to hard drive by DVDShrink - without shrinking) in Ifoedit, open ifo files, click on film icon next to aspect ratio and change radio button from 4:3 to 16:9 (and appropriate letterbox display), then Save (and burn new DVD). This seems to do trick - but not for all players.

If anyone has a better, more elegant solution, I'd love to hear. I'm not exactly sure what I've done - or if it may introduce new problems.