wide-screen dvd's

[alrobin]

Has anyone successfully converted a wide-format PTE show (say around 1280x768) to a wide-screen mpeg file or burned it as a wide-screen or HDTV DVD? If so, what software and general procedure did you use? What "video" settings for converting PTE to AVI? What codec do you use in PTE?

I used the PTE codec to create a wide-screen AVI file, but I can't seem to get Premiere Elements or Pinacle to retain that format in the rasterizing process. In Nero Express-2 I can change the aspect ratio to HDTV (16:9) settings. But then I encounter my old problem of not being able to put more than one show on the disk, even though there is plenty of space. Too many options - too confusing! But an interesting challenge!

[Ken Cox]

Buy me a widescreen and i will try with my cobbled up tools

if you read Carol Thomas's entries "Rooskidiver'

http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums//index...t=ST&f=4&t=1350

she did it eons ago

ken

[alrobin]

Ken,

I couldn't see any reference in Carol's posts to wide-screen aspect ratios. Do you have the date for that particular post?

[Ken Cox]

http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums//index...t=ST&f=4&t=1350

her sons lcd would be a wide screen tv i imagine

drop her a line

k

[alrobin]

... her sons lcd would be a wide screen tv i imagine

Sure, it might be a wide screen lcd tv, and it will still play any format of dvd, but that doesn't mean that the dvd was made specifically for wide-screen or HDTV.

[Ken Cox]

well

i said buy me one and iwill make it:))

ken

[potwnc]

Has anyone successfully converted a wide-format PTE show (say around 1280x768) to a wide-screen mpeg file or burned it as a wide-screen or HDTV DVD? If so, what software and general procedure did you use? What "video" settings for converting PTE to AVI? What codec do you use in PTE?

challenge!

Al, yes I've done this successfully. After rendering from PTE to AVI at 1920x1080 (NTSC, non-interlaced, 29.97 fps) (I believe I used the standard PTE codec, but I'm not too sure about that). I used TMPGenc DVD Source Creator to reduce it to 720x480 (16:9) MPEG-2 format and then used TSUNAMI-MPEG DVD Author to author and burn it to a DVD+R (my burner uses bitsetting to produce a final DVD-ROM). I used Windows Media Encoder to produce 1440x1080p (Non-Square pixels) WMV HD. The only problem I had was when I first tried AVI -> WMV. Windows Media Encoder crashed consistently and I thought it was a PTE error. I posted about that in the forum, but later tested it on a clean Windows install and it ran fine.

Hope this helps!

Ray

[alrobin]

well

i said buy me one and iwill make it:))

ken

Is that the same thing as "build it and they will come"?

[alrobin]

... I used TMPGenc DVD Source Creator to reduce it to 720x480 (16:9) MPEG-2 format

Ray, I don't understand - I can use Nero or Pinnacle or Premiere Elements to reduce a show to a 720x480 AVI, too, but this is not an HDTV aspect ratio. What I would like to do is retain the 1280x768 resolution as long as possible in the rendering process in order to maintain maximum quality.

[potwnc]

Al,

Yes, 720x480 is not 16:9, but 720x480 is the standard resolution for NTSC DVDs. It doesn't matter what aspect ratio your source material is. So, for example, Pinnacle Studio (and the others) will produce DVDs in 4:3, 16:9, letterbox etc. but the actual DVD will always be 720x480 (unless you want PAL, which I guess you don't if you are in Canada). This is no different than commercial DVDs that come with 2 discs - Standard format (4:3) and Widescreen format (usually 16:9). Both dics are 720x480 (if they are NTSC).

If you play any NTSC DVD (commercial or one that you made) on an HDTV (all of which are 16:9, but note that a lot of sales people don't know this, or will lie about it to get you to buy their product), you will see the aspect ratio of your source material. If that source material is 16:9 (e.g., 1280x768), it will fill the whole screen.

If you want to show the material in true HD (1280x786 or 1920x1080 or 1440x1080 non-square pixels) you have to use Windows Media Encoder (or Sony Vegas, or Pinnacle Studio 10, which is very unstable, or some other software that supports HD rendering) and play it back through your computer. HD players are not currently available outside Japan.

Hope this helps!

Ray

[alrobin]

Thanks very much, Ray - this info is really helpful. It seems counter-intuitive, but you seem to know more about it than I do, which isn't saying very much.

I can set the video output format to 16:9 in Nero, but I haven't figured out how to do it in Pinnacle or Premiere Elements. Maybe because up to now I have chosen 720x540 instead of 720x480? I created a huge file from PTE using no compression, but Pinnacle wouldn't accept it.

One really has to play around with this stuff and experiment a lot, but it is sooooo time-consuming!

[potwnc]

I can set the video output format to 16:9 in Nero, but I haven't figured out how to do it in Pinnacle or Premiere Elements. Maybe because up to now I have chosen 720x540 instead of 720x480? I created a huge file from PTE using no compression, but Pinnacle wouldn't accept it.

Al,

Any particular reason you chose 720x540? Anyway, for an NTSC DVD (North America, Japan and a few other, obscure places) always choose 720x480. As I said before, don't worry if that's not the aspect ratio of your source material... programs like Nero etc. will automatically set the pixel ratio so that the aspect ratio of your source is preserved.

Which version of Pinnacle Studio do you use? 10 is very flakey when it comes to doing what you told it in terms of these type of parameters.

I wouldn't recommend producing an uncompressed AVI file. As you said, they are huge. Stick with a codec that produces a manageable file.

Good luck!

[alrobin]

Thanks again, Ray,

I guess I chose 720x540 because that's the aspect ratio of my desktop monitor. and also most of my slideshows. I was under the impression that one had to match the size of the images.

I have since put together a wide-screen (1280x768) show using 720x480 format. I used Nero 6.0 to render it to HDTV format. However, the mpeg file played back at only half-screen size in Real Player on my wide-screen laptop monitor. And, the vertical "pans" had gaps between the images (the horizontal ones were fine). So, now I have to resize my images to the 16:9 aspect ratio to see if they will play without spaces between them. I'll also burn it to a dvd to see if it plays at the proper size on my son-in-law's wide TV screen. It's coming - slowly! Thanks for your help!

[Ken Cox]

From my notes and some of Hawk's notes -- as i have said before we do work together to solve problems --BTW the old adage " 2 heads are better than one" is true

the results of my tests

At Al Robinson's urging/hints

http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=3943

re making a dvd formatted to 16:9 aspect ratio to show on widescreen TV.

I started with 2 p2e shows -- p2e set at full screen synched

first the one I will call PUNTA has 228 picts that were as taken and ranged in size from 800 kb to 2.5 Mb - dimensions were 2048/1536

the EXE was 318.7 Mb incl. mp3's

the p2e temp AVI was 218.6 Mb

second show was 29 picts off the web - neat net picts- all less than 100 kb in size and none greater than 700/468

the EXE was 4.5 Mb the AVI 30.1 Mb in MP3

I imported the AVI/vid's to Nero 6.6 vision express 2 and set aspect ratio to 16:9

other values were set to automatic other than I set the return to menu trick that Hawk discovered

the resulting show was not to my expectations - a bit soft and with borders and the right side border wave problem

so I started dvdsanta Ver 4 and set aspect ratio to 16:9

the default setting is high quality 720/480

in the essence of time I stayed with PUNTA

and made the dvd -- showed same on my standard 29" Toshiba TV

-- was perfect in my eyes

- changed aspect ratio of dvd player - - tried all 3 settings 16:9 had rock steady top and bottom border and same filled screen horizontally

DvdSanta runs a show in a loop which I did not want so now I restarted Nero and vision express 2 and imported the contents of dvdsanta's video_ts folder

Nero asks questions - I answer yes to all and Nero starts - it throws out unnecessary files as necessary --

make my background and button selections etc.

auto aspect ,quality, sample, encoding. hi quality 2 pass and lpcm setting for audio

and burned dvd

perfect show c/w menu and does not loop

Now I have to try on a widescreen TV so made one using same method for fella that has a widescreen TV -- same uses picts as taken with his digital camera 600 kb to 2 Mb size most are 2272/1704

EXE incl. MP3 = 269.5 Mb

AVI 177.6 Mb

12 dvd blanks used

real impressed at this point

btw

I use the p2e default settings to make the AVI but I do check the sharpness and interlaced boxes

http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=3943

ken

--

Ken

After reading Al's post I am about to attempt, in the next day or two a

small sample show with just about the same settings as you have mentioned.

Nero Vision - 2-Pass

I was going to try an Custom AVI - not sure what width and height ?

I may also Crop images right from camera - not sure what size ? as I think

it may at this time a trial and error to get proper proportion for HDTV

I think when it comes to 16.9, I am at a loss with image size if it does

make a difference, or as you mention - right from camera size and let it do

its own thing. and see what it looks like.

No doubt it will be more than a one shot trial.

As I mentioned to you and Al before Christmas, I took one of my

(normal)(1024x768) shows to my daughters and viewed on her 42" Plasma HDTV -

" Whoow" impressed. Yes she adjusted to 4.3 & 16.9 at the TV level so I

could see the difference and 16.9 slight stretch normal. However I think

with proper settings the proportion could be rectified.

If there is a certain setting you wish me to try - let me know.

I will let you know my results - or send you the coasters.

Ralph/Hawk on WnSoft forum.

I went to our City's top independent Audio Video Dealer that I deal with this morning and asked to use a 42" widescreen setup. The senior salesman -Jim directed my grandson's and I to a Samsung 42" Plasma TV being fed by a Denon dvd player. I explained to Jim what I was trying to accomplish this time. We started with the "PUNTA" show. It was fantastic in my eyes - the kids were excited as well seeing themselves on a big screen. By this time the owner of the store -Grev- came over and he asked if I done the show. I explained to him my daughter had with her 2-3 year old $300 +- HP point and shoot digital camera and I had put it together using the software "Pict to exe" - I asked if there was anything wrong with it -- all said it was perfect. We then put the other show in that was made the same way - [600 kb to 2 Mb , size most are 2272/1704

EXE incl. MP3 = 269.5 Mb

AVI 177.6 Mb]

Again perfect in my eyes but the audience thought some scenes were slightly squished -top to bottom but all in all negible effects.

I asked if we could now try a wall set and Jim led the way to one of their projector rooms and put in the PUNTA disc- the kids were bug eyed as well as me when they seen themselves on 100" screen - image was being projected with an Epson 550 projector. Again I asked Jim if it was ok -- nothing wrong with that.

I felt we had taken enough of their time and we left. These people have worked with me during my time of making sideshows from my early experimenting on tape right up to this latest adventure to provide equipment and people to assist me -- when a show was not too good they told me plain and simple - they must take after me:)

ken

refer to

http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=3943

5:58 PM 1/7/2006

AT HAWK'S SUGGESTION I picked another "as taken show" and made a 16:9 using winavi 6.2 to convert the AVI and Nero 6.6 to do final encoding to dvd - - made a one button show c/w background - made no other setting changes to Nero

show details as follows

CEDAR POINT 2004 - HP PHOTOSMART 735 CAMERA

EXE = 153.3 MB

PICTS RANGED FROM 500 KB TO 1800 KB - 2048 X 1536 DIMENSIONS

103 SLIDES

2 - MP3'S

TEMP VID/AVI - 76,245 KB 720 X 540 DIMENSIONS FROM P2E

I set WinAvi to highest quality 16:9 screen dimensions

resulting video_Ts was 288 Mb

in future this 16:9 procedure may be the way to do all shows as the dvd player can be changed to the recorded format and maybe we will all have widescreen TV's in the future

4:54 AM 1/8/2006

Hawk suggested I try

http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index....st=entry25180

potwnc Ray's suggestion "yes I've done this successfully. After rendering from PTE to AVI at 1920x1080 (NTSC, non-interlaced, 29.97 fps) (I believe I used the standard PTE codec, but I'm not too sure about that).

so using PUNTA again I made a custom AVI 1920/1080

same was 218.6 mb

It took 3 hrs +- to encode in Nero to 16:9 + the burn time

Resulting video_Ts was 1.41 GB.

Then using PUNTA again I used WinAvi 7.1 to encode the custom AVI -- time was +- 1 hr and the resulting video_Ts was 714 Mb

I then imported the video_Ts to Nero vision express put in a button background and text and left all other options as is and completed the dvd in 16 1/2 mins

the video_Ts was .99 GB

The picture seemed to be richer than the first 16:9 tests

What I did not do was deselect the interlaced box

Back to the drawing board, but not for a bit. With my TV's the results are just fine.

I do not know why the very first Nero Test was not successful - maybe because of the 2 shows - and they were different quality

Ken

[alrobin]

Ken,

Looks like you have things down pat after all that experimenting and your usual attention to detail. It's a good thing to keep good notes like you seem to be doing - thanks for passing them on to us.

I'm going to upgrade to Premiere Elements 2, so will let you know what happens with that.

[Hawk]

potwnc (Ray)

Thank you for adding your expertise to this thread I think you may have resolved the proportion question I had, in creating a 16.9 wide screen show.

In your post you made a mention of 1920 x 1080 so here is how I took your remark please correct me if I am wrong.

First:

To be able to check out some settings and Safe Zone for TV, I created a small 28-image show with 2 different transitions, buttons and text using Times Roman 32 pt – regular font. Effect Duration 5000, Smoothing Line at default 60.

Synchronized Music.

Images were full size from my Nikon 4500 camera 2272 x 1704, and I added a few good quality pics at 1024 x 768

With PTE – VIDEO I created a Custom AVI at Width 1920 and Height 1080 – 29.97 FPS and used Picture to EXE Codec.

Working with Nero Vision as Ken and I have done with testing previous shows I added the temp .AVI, Next with the “More” button, which opens more option and choosing “Video Options” I made my changes to 16.9 – Quality Settings to High Quality, Encoding Mode to High Quality ( 2-Pass VBR)

In the next section of Nero (Menu’s) I by passed and left default.

In the “Burn” section I choose just to write files to Hard Drive.

When completed I opened Nero Express and burned files to DVD-R at a 4x speed.

Hot off the disk I RUSHED to view on my daughters 42” Plasma HDTV, I had to apologize for interrupting the Hockey Game !!

I was and they were very impressed.

Findings:

The proportion I think was pretty much right on! – Only I would know any slight variation if any.

The text was absolute perfect and clear as a bell.

Safe Zone check with buttons in the lower right bottom corner were exact on the vertical side on the horizontal they were a touch to the INSIDE which was OK.

Picture image quality in my opinion there again exceptional! No comparison to my old 27”– 4.3, I could not tell any difference between 1024 x 768 and 2272 x 1704 images.

Al

I think the trick here was the creating the Custom AVI to 1920 x 1080 ?

Thank you Ray for shedding some light on this subject for those of us that are new to this.

Very Much appreciated

[alrobin]

Ralph,

Thanks for verifying the procedures for wide-screen and HD video production - this is a big help, especially for those of us without HD sets. And, I agree with you that my problem in producing a correctly-sized image probably lies in not using the standard HDTV resolution for the conversion from PTE. I'll redo it at the earliest opportunity, but this time with higher-res images as well. The results you obtained are encouraging!!

[potwnc]

Glad to be of help. And glad soome have been able to produce "widescreen" shows to their satisfaction.

A few observations...

16:9 is _not_ widescreen! Rather, it is known as "anamorphic widescreen." If you play a widescreen DVD on an HDTV or HD computer monitor, expect to see 2 thin borders top and bottom, as the widescreen aspect ratio is slightly different (more elongated) than anamorphic widescreen (but they're pretty close).

"HD format" can mean different things depending on the context... There are 3 main formats in use:

1) 720p - the frames are 1280x720 pixels, and the frames are "progressive scan," which means the full frame is shown at once.

2) 1080i - the frames are 1920x1080 pixels (but some codecs, e.g., Microsoft WMV 9, can scale these to 1440x1080 and use non-square pixels), and the frames are "interace scan," which means, just like good old-fashion TV sets, half of each frame is shown at once, then the other half. (Most people's eyes are too slow to notice the interlace effect.)

All HD cable and satellite TV signals (at least in N. America) are currently one of the above.

3) 1080p - the best currently possible. The best combination of 1 and 2 above. The only way (currently) to get this is to make your own or buy commercial WMV HD DVDs (e.g., at Amazon.com).

Note that the above applies to the source material, not the hardware it will be viewed on. I've seen consumer electronics stores advertising TVs with 1024x1024 pixels as "HDTVs." This is nonesense! What they mean is "it can play an HDTV signal." Well, with the right converter, so can the very first consumer black-and-white TVs made in the 1940s! If it doesn't have _at least_ 1280x720 pixels you will lose quality. Period!

So.....

From Al: "I have since put together a wide-screen (1280x768) show using 720x480 format. I used Nero 6.0 to render it to HDTV format."

I assume you mean the source AVI was 1280x768? I typed my earlier comment in a hurry, I should have said 1280x720, which _is_ the 16:9 (HD) aspect ratio, not 1280x768. Sorry. But note that unless your original images are at least 1280x720, PTE (and any other program) can only interpolate the missing pixels, which will reduce quality. If your destination is going to be a DVD, your software (e.g., Nero) will then downscale that back to 720x405. So, if you want your show to be anamorphic widescreen (16:9), on DVD, why not just skip an unnecessary step and tell PTE to output to 720x405 (also a 16:9, HD aspect ratio), then burn this with Nero?

From Hawk: "I created a Custom AVI at Width 1920 and Height 1080...I opened Nero Express and burned files to DVD-R..." First, note that neither 2272 x 1704 nor 1024 x 768 is a 16:9 ratio. So when PTE output the AVI it must have distorted the images slightly? Second, because your output format is DVD, you could just as easily let PTE produce a 720x405 (16:9) AVI and burned that onto your DVD-R. The results should be the same. Third, what DVD player did you use? Some of the newer ones will "upscale" DVDs to higher resolution. Did you use one of these? Last, if you _really_ want to impress your audience, put your 1920x1080 AVI through Windows Media Encoder (free from Microsoft), and play it from your computer (it has to be pretty powerful to do this) with its video card output connected to your daughter's plasma HDTV. To get an idea of the quality you'll see, download one of the "showcase" HD trailers from microsoft.com.

Soon I'll put a show I've made (however, not using PTE because I needed pan and zoom) on my web site in both 720p and 1080i. Email me if you want the link when I've uploaded it.

I know some of this is not straightforward, but remember that the size and aspect ratio of the original material is very important here. Good luck

Ray

[alrobin]

Ray,

Thanks again for the information - I think I'm starting to get my head around this. Yes, you are correct - the original image sizes in my slideshow are 1280x768 because that is the native resolution of my new digital projector. Most wide-screen projectors apparently use a native resolution of 1280x720, but my Mitsubishi is one of few that gives you that extra headroom so that the usual 1024x768 slideshows, and the usual TV programming, will project without undue cropping or resizing.

I don't really have an application for HD (yet) but I'm interested in it from a technical point of view, and the best way to learn about somethng is to try to make it work.

Please let me know when and where you put your show on-line.

[Hawk]

Ray

Sorry for the late reply, I also wanted to thank you very much for the follow up on this topic.

To answer your question as to my daughters DVD player, I am not sure what she has, except that it is a newer Panasonic just purchased before Christmas 2005 and I think it has a few goodies.

And as far as my images being slightly distorted yes there are two in question, as you mentioned my image sizes were not a 16:9 ratio.

Still trying to put it all together as Al mentions a challenge and a new venture for us also.

Ken was kind enough to have my test show viewed on a 100” wall through a projector and results were still overwhelming and promising for first attempt.

Once again

Thanks.

[potwnc]

You're welcome!

Good luck with your projects.

[jevans]

Gentlemen,

This is an interesting thread since I too have been trying to make DVD's for a wide screen TV. I am light years behind you all in understanding the various technical details, but I thought I would just post here what I am doing and perhaps ask a question.

My camera images have a 4:3 aspect ratio. I crop these for PTE shows to 1280 x 960 as my monitor is a 19 inch LCD with a screen ratio of 1280 x 1024 so 1280 x 960 is the nearest crop size to fill the screen and maintain the original image aspect ratio.

I output the standard AVI file from PTE using the PTE codec and the box for Movie Factory ticked (plus interlace and sharpness of course). I import this temporary AVI file directly into Movie Factory (or Vision Express), make any menu selections I want and then burn the video files to my hard disc. The burn process produces 6 video files, 3 Video_TS.* files and 3 VTS_01* files. I then burn these files to a DVD-R disc plus all the associated files used to make the PTE show. The resultant disc autoruns on my DVD player and also contains a backup of all my project files.

I have a 28 inch LCD TV (PAL) which is "HD Ready", whatever that means. Its pixel dimentions are 1366 x 768, i.e. an aspect ratio of 1.77, (wide screen 16:9 ?). The DVD shows are great on this TV but not quite so good on another standard wide screen CRT TV that I also have. There is perhaps a little distortion when viewing in wide screen, but it is not sufficient to be distracting. There is a slight improvement if the TV is set to 4:3 which I guess is to be expected.

Now for the question. When creating the temporary AVI file from PTE, the default PAL settings are 768 x 576, i.e. a ratio of 1.33. Can you manually change these values to say 1366 x 768 ( my TV screen pixel ratio) and then process the AVI file as above to produce a 16:9 aspect ratio output?

I notice from the Video codec thread in the main forum that the PTE teporary AVI file can be imported into Vision Express and then exported as a 16:9 mpeg file and this presumably another way. But it is more long winded and produces much bigger files.

Jeff

[alrobin]

Jeff,

Select "Custom" in PTE for the avi, and you can select the dimensions you want. You will get much larger files, though.

[Ken Cox]

Jeff

you may -- at this point -- start keeping a detailed log as to what variations to the default settings in p2e, nero and ulead etc

and

also you should take you dvd disks to another dvd/tv setup that is differnt than your own and see how it plays

Al has 2 different setups c/w a projector where he can compare his progress

Hawk and I have to go elsewhere to view widescreen results

I have found that running the tmp avi/vid thru winavi and setting it to make a dvd file at 16:9 then importing the result into Nero with default settings other than the menu option setting has worked the best for me

size example

original exe was 263 mb

p2e default standard settings with interlace off

tmp avi/vid = 177.5 mb

winavi mpeg-2 = 795.4 mb

ran thru Nero = 1.6 gb

tmpgenc could also be used or equivalent to make the mpeg 2 file , i am comfortable using winavi

all in all very time consuming

ken

[jevans]

Ken and Al,

Yes Ken I agree that keeping a record of the tests is important. Also I have two widescreen TVs and two DVD players, so I can try the results on both systems. As I use PAL, my results may not be too useful to you guys, but for what they are worth, here are the latest results.

First of all Al, using the "create custom AVI video file" option in PTE with width/height settings of,

firstly a setting of 768 x 576

secondly a setting of 1366 x 768

gives identical size temporary PTE AVI files (40,637KB) for my test show. The second settings are the pixel dimensions of my wide screen LCD TV. The PTE exe file is 28,884KB. The codec is the standard PTE version.

So I have produced two versions of my test show with the dimensions above using Nero Vision Express to produce the video files. When I play these show on my DVD, the first show (768 x 576) completely fills the TV screen when set to Wide Screen. The pictures look excellent and, if there is any distortion, it is not easy to see. The second version (1366 x 768) produces a typical wide screen image with black borders at the top and bottom. To fill the screen, I have to set the TV to the zoom mode and then the picture looks the same as the first show. Incidently whilst assembling the second show in Vision Express, Nero told me that the aspect ratio was 4:3 although the final result was 16:9, due I believe to the width height settings I applied to the temporary PTE AVI file.

CONCLUSIONS : On my system, there is no need to do anything special to achieve an excellent image fully filling the screen of a wide screen LCD TV. Just use the default settings of PTE and use Nero to provide the video files and required menus.

Jeff