Creating widescreen DVDs

[consultant]

I bought a Sony DCR-PC9 about a year ago. I just bought a DVD recorder and ULEAD Videostudio 6 and have created one DVD. Now I'm looking at buying a widescreen HDTV. I'm not concerned about recording in HDTV as I know those cameras costs many thousands of dollars. What I want is to record and burn DVD's with widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio videos that fit a widescreen TV.

Out of curosity I switched my Sony camcorder on 16:9 mode and it appears all it is doing is masking the top and bottom of the screen as the field of view width doesn't change on the LCD. So I'm assuming if I recorded in this mode and burned a DVD, and then played the DVD on a widescreen TV, I would see black lines on all four sides of the picture since the DVD player thinks the video is a 4:3 aspect ratio video as that is the native format of the cameras CCD. Can anyone confirm if this is the case?

I'm also assuming there isn't any home-user desktop video editing/DVD authoring software that is capable of taking a letterboxed 4:3 aspect ratio digital video, cropping it, and then burning a DVD which the DVD player will think is a 16:9 widescreen movie like you rent in the stores. Granted you are losing some resolution, but it would make filming in the "fake" 16:9 mode on my camera worth it if I could do this.

My guess is that it is one of those cases where keeping up with the latest technology has a domino effect on the pocket book. I'm going to shell out $3K for a widescreen TV in a month and I'm guessing if I want to film my family videos in true widescreen I'm going to have to replace my Sony DCR-PC9 which I just bought a year ago with another, at least $1,000, camcorder. If this is true, any recommendations?

Will the Video Editing and DVD authoring software work with a true 16:9 camera so that you can burn widescreen videos? Has anyone done it -- that is, burned a DVD that displays in widescreen mode automatically without having to zoom the DVD player or TV to make it fit a widescreen TV?

I'm think maybe the best (cheapest) route for now is to just burn the DVD's with the black masking on the top and bottom that the camcorder adds in 16:9 mode and then just use the Zoom mode on the TV that zooms in without stretching the picture. (I had better burn a DVD and take it with me to the showroom to make sure the TV will do it right before buying it I guess). It seems like a hoakey way to do it but I really hate junking a $1,000 camcorder that I have only had for a year.

Any advice would greatly be appreciated. Thanks.

[consultant]

After a little more research I think I can answer some of my own question. It appears the Sony DCRVX2000 and Canon XL-1 are the two most popular camcorders with true anamorphic 16:9 recording capabilities and they are $2K and $3K each respectively (ouch). I think I found a much better solution, Century makes a 16:9 lens adapter ( http://www.centuryoptics.com/product.../16x9_adapter/ ) and the picture shows it mounted on a Sony camcorder (hope it fits mine.) Only one problem, it costs $895!! Better to just wait until lower priced camcorders are available that shoot in anamorphic widescreen.

Even if I did use the adapter to film stretched in 4:3 and then burn a DVD, will people's DVD players recognize it as anamorphic and stretch and crop it so it looks right on a 4:3 television? It seems like there must be a setting in the DVD authoring software to signal to the DVD player it is anamorphic so it now to stretch and crop it if the DVD player is set to 4:3 mode. Otherwise I don't see how it could tell the difference. Of course I could just take the attitude that these are home movies primarily intended for me, and I will have a widescreen TV (and so will my other firends and relatives eventually) so don't worry about 4:3 anymore.

What a pain this is figuring all this out.

[khp]

I think you need to learn some more about how aspect ratios work on DVD's.

All DVD's must be encoded at 720*576 (PAL at 25fps) or 720*480 (NTSC at 29.97 fps). The video stream then has an aspect ratio flag which tell the player to stretch the image to either 4:3 or 16:9.

To author your 16:9 camcorder clips for DVD, you simply need stretch it to 720*576(480 for NTSC), and set the aspect ratio flag to 16:9. And it should showup correctly when played on your DVD player.