Newbie question re: aspect ratio

[Electrojim]

Hi.

I'm not much of a videophile, but today received an old B&W movie in the .m4v file format from a friend and wanted to burn it to a DVD. My resident Microsoft DVD Maker (Win Vista) won't accept that file type, so I downloaded DVD Flick, which seemed a nice, simple authoring utility. I was able to burn the file and play it on a DVD player, but the aspect ratio didn't hold true. The original file plays with the 4:3 ratio of the movie using either Windows Media Player or VLC player, but the newly-burned DVD stretches horizontally to fit the 16:9 screen. There doesn't seem to be any reference to aspect ratio in the DVD Flick setup, and there is no way to change it with either the TV's or DVD player's setup options. (You can stretch a 4:3 to fit the screen, but you can't shrink a 16:9 to 4:3.) Like I say, I'm not a video type person and wonder what I'm overlooking here. Thanks!

[r0lZ]

Welcome to DVF, Electrojim!

Indeed, DVDs can have the two AR: 16:9 or 4:3. They have the same resolution in both case: 720 (or 704) x 576 for PAL or 720 (or 704) x 480 for NTSC.

The aspect ratio of the movie is stored in the IFO. You can change it easily with PgcEdit. (If you don't have it, see my signature.)

If you don't have the IFO and VOB files on your hard disc, begin by copying all files from your DVD to a folder on your hard disc. Then load the DVD in PgcEdit.

In the left pane, right-click the movie PGC (easy to recognise with its duration or with the preview). Select "Domain Streams Attributes". In the little dialog, tick the "4:3" ckeckbox. Do not tick "Source Picture Letterboxed". Save and test with a good software player. Burn the DVD again. (I strongly suggest using ImgBurn to burn the IFO and VOB files. Other burners may try to re-encode the movie or burn the PgcEdit backup files as well!)

That's all.