Burning a 16:9 plays back as full screen on regular DVD/TV

[yabedude]

I can't seem to burn (NTSC) DVD's and maintain the 16:9 aspect ratio.

The video source was a Sony DCR-DVD505 DVD recored with 16:9 ratio. I used Movie Factory to import the scenes from an 8 cm DVD.

The movies play and appear correct (16:9) on the PC, but when played in a real DVD player attached to a television set, the aspect ratio is lost and it will only play back in 'full screen mode' losing the sides. The TV itself is not widescreen, but when playing commercially available DVD's the black bars are displayed at the top/bottom. I tried this on 2 seperate DVD players and even configured them to use 16:9 rather than 'auto', yet it always returns to widescreen.

How do I assemble the project and burn the DVD so that the wide screen aspect ratio is enabled for playback on regular household DVD players?

[kw]

I ran into the same problem when I updated from Moviefactory 2.0 or 3.5. I found out I didn't have the dvd player setup correctly. I had it on 4:3pan/scan insted of 4:3 letterbox. Does your dvd player give you this option? Mine's a Panasonic F87 5 disk changer.

[sjj1805]

You need the more expensive DVD Workshop
This includes the following:

Output Display Options
When creating DVD projects, you can assign settings to your titles to specify how they should be displayed on TV screens. To change the display setting, right-click a thumbnail in the Title List then select Output Display Options.

The Output Display Options dialog box contains the following:

Display aspect ratio Displays the aspect ratio of the selected title.

On standard TV Displays different options on how titles that have display aspect ratios of 16:9 will be displayed on a standard TV.

Letterbox only Select if you want the DVD player to recognize the letterbox properties of the video. The letterbox process preserves the entire frame and proportionally reduces the size so that the whole picture fits on the TV screen. Proportional display reduction will result in mattes (black bands) above and below the image.
Pan & Scan only Select if you want the DVD player to recognize the pan & scan properties of the video.
Both letterbox and pan & scan Select if you want the DVD player to recognize both the letterbox and pan & scan properties of the video. Usually, to preserve the entire picture of a 16:9 video on a standard TV, the mattes are used to cover up the unused areas on the screen.

These options are not in MovieFactory.

[yabedude]

So I download the trial version of DVD Workshop and now I lose the audio. Why? My guess is because my camera records in dolby 5.1 and of course the trial version doesn't support that.

This is the wrong forum to ask, but is there anything else (cheaper) with similar functionality? I'm not a professional, just a lowly home user that wants to capture my children on DVD.

[ruggy1]

So are you saying sjj that burning and displaying a DVD in 16x9 format cannot be done in MF5?

[sjj1805]

Ruggy1
Perhaps I haven't explained my point correctly.
Movie Factory 5 can and will produce DVD's in either 4.3 or 16.9.

When starting a new project click the bottom left icon
"Settings and options" and now choose a suitable template.
Some Templates are in 4.3 mode, others in 16.9

You can also toggle 4.3/16.9 formats after inserting a video to the timeline by clicking the third icon from the left below the timeline.

Do not confuse that with my post above:

On standard TV Displays different options on how titles that have display aspect ratios of 16:9 will be displayed on a standard TV.

With DVD WS you can control how a 16.9 video will display on a 4.3 TV
You cannot do that with MF5.

Thank you for pointing out an ambiguity in my earlier reply.