Understanding the Aspect Ratio. Why always 4:3?

[latas]

Well, I was trying to understand why always MF4 detects my DVD's recorded with my Sony Handycam DVD-92E as 4:3, when I'm really recording them as 16:9.

The problem is in the .VOB file. It looks like the IFO files for the DVD, my own camera creates by itself when a DVD is finalized, is right adjusted to 16:9, but the .VOB file, which also have a header appears as 4:3.

Following instructions from other forum post I download DVDPatcher to check this issue:

http://www.wincesoft.de/html/dvdpatcher.html

As a result in fact the VOB file has a header where the aspect ratio is assigned as 4:3.

So what's happening here?

I've got a 4:3 film, that's going to be played on a DVD player as 16:9. Well it looks like that's it.

I think this works in this way because the camera has a 4:3 Screen. So the only way to get 16:9 is reducing the top and bottom of the screen, but the wide of the screen, is the same than 4:3.

So, what to do?

Don't know. In fact if you try to modify the VOB header adjusting 16:9 instead 4:3 the result is an image wider than should be, because in fact it is 4:3.

So I think, recording in 16:9 with common cameras, looks like to be a little tricky.

So, with this explanation, we got a problem in MF4 of course. Because with good criteria MF4 assigns 4:3 for those videos.

I think the only choice to fix this issue by the way is, do the same as the camera does.
I mean, once your DVD is ready to be recorded, don't record it. Save it into disk as files.

Using IFOEdit tool, modify the VIDEO_TS.IFO and other IFO files, to modify the aspect ratio to 16:9.

Is really easy to do it with IFOEdit.

In this way we'll do the same trick as the camera does.

Cheers.

[maddrummer3301]

I also have had that same problem with the Sony Recorders.
You can use VS9 to convert it which must re-render the file out to 16:9 ratio.
Usually when I import a dvd MF4 or VS9 states the aspect ratio.
On my disks the aspect ratio isn't displayed in the information box for the video.

VS9 works but it's tricky on the settings (using smart-render).
You don't have to set the "Project" to 16:9. It's in the create video file
that's important. I've converted a few over using this method and checked them and all the information is in the picture.

Sony marks the Max_Bit_Rate as 9100 to 9800 when the average_bit_rate may be 4500kbs (SD).
That's not very compatible with VS9 or MF4 encoder so one needs to
know the format that the video was created in.

Like you said, IFOEdit is a better solution.

MD