Anamorphic DVD

[nickles]

I am interested in creating a DVD that's optimized for a wide screen TV that has a 16:9 format (HDTV). I believe the type of DVD is called Anamorphic. Is there anyone out there that has any experience with this format?

Any help will be appreciated.

.....ken

[Ken Cox]

Ken

dvdsanta will make a widescreen dvd

see

http://www.dvdsanta.com/

but i have not tried it with a p2e avi

it is a bare bones program -- no menuu for final dvd but does the job

you have the option of 3 quality settings as well

only +- 3 mb download

ken

[Ken Cox]

dvd santa

only problem i see is it wants to be on top all the time

did a 16:9 aspect ratio for a widescreen test -- used a PTE show that was on a cd r -- made the avi direct from the cd

exe was +-270 meg

pte created an avi from files on cd -r = 178+- meg

used 894 meg on a standard 4.7 gb dvd disc

shows ok on a standard 4:3 29" tv -- has black bar top and bottom and somes squishing of images evident

when played on a pair of 13" tv's no bar or squishing evident

will have to go to friend's place to do the widescreen test

It will also do PAL format

ken

[nickles]

Ken Cox:

Thanks very much for your input. I decided to experiment with my existing software before trying something new.

I have a friend that has recently bought a 42 inch wide 16:9 plasma HDTV. He wanted me to make a slideshow for him. I finally developed the following procedure after a few intial tests:

1.) I cropped and resized some photos to be 854x480 pixels (16:9) format. I then resized the photos to conform to DVD format of 720x480 pixels without locking the aspect ratio. On my PC screen they looked "squished".

2.) I made a PTE AVI with a 720x480 @ 29.97fps.

3.) I noticed that my Cinemacraft Basic MPEG-2 encoder had a place to specify to create the MPEG-2 for 16:9 tvs.

4.) I then authored and burned the DVD with DVD Lab.

5.) When I played the DVD on my 4:3 TV with my DVD player setup for 4:3 TV size the video looked "squished". I then setup up the DVD player for Widescreen and the video displayed at the right proportions but was letter boxed with black bars on the top and bottom.

6.) I took the DVD to my friends and played on his HDTV. Simply amazing! The video initially appeared squished until he selected "fit to screen" on his TV. Wow! The overall clarity was amazing and perfect proportions.

The advantage to the anamorphic(applys only to widescreen TV sets) is that the vertical resolution does not need to be stretched but only the horizontal from 720 to 853. Wow again! Must get a wide screen TV when the prices drop where I can afford! Almost as clear as watching a PTE slideshow on your PC monitor.

Thanks again for your input Ken.

[Igor]

I'll try to add anamorphic DVD and HDTV resolutions in the next versions.

[nickles]

Igor:

Thanks for the reply....I think as the technology is changing quite rapidly...in that direction...it would be a wonderful option to have.

Keep up your great and very responsive developments.

thanks again,

ken