W7 DVD maker

I used this for the first time the other day. I took a widescreen video which when played with any player that would play it, defaulted to the proper aspect ratio automatically when opened. But once i burned it i then opened the DVD in a couple players and the aspect ratio was wrong and the picture was squished. In one player i couldn't even make it right, in the other i could but when the DVD was opened it didn't go to the proper widescreen ratio.

Now that said, i don't care about that because they were made for friends and family to play on thier TV's. But my fear was it would do the same on a TV, and when i tried it with my sony DVD player on my TV it indeed did that. granted, i could adjust the screen to wide and it looked good. But is there anyways to make it play like that by default? I mean, when you put a factory DVD movie in a DVD/TV setup they default to the correct size. I am only concerned because i will be making these for various friends and family, a few which are older people like my 90 year old mother who will never be able to figure it out. She has a very hard time understanding the most basic functions of her TV and remote as is. I looked in the app's options and all and i didn't see anything that seemed to do this so i decided maybe someone here would know how i can burn these in a way that will have them play in a DVD player at the default size as they do when opened as an avi in any player from the file itself. Thanks

I will give that a try, thank you.

Well, i was at work when i read your reply but once i got home i realized i DID look at options and it was on 16:9, ad in fact defaults to that. And it waas NTSC which i noticed right away having worked at a video post house years ago. So i knew NTSC was north america's format. So thats not it. Any other ideas?

I had the same problem and the only fix I found online (maybe this forum) was to run it through Windows Live Movie Maker first and then taking that format through Windows DVD Maker. I think that worked on occasion but I ended up buying a DVD player that would play avi's rather than waste a bunch of writable DVD's.

It's too bad too because Windows DVD Maker makes awesome menus.

Yeah, here's the thread on the same problem...

Windows DVD Maker Widescreen Problems

whs said:

i burn my videos with DVD Flick. They work fine on the TV.

That really doesn't correct the problem but....

On my Windows XP laptop I'd get a bunch that would get errors hours into the encoding and I'd have to abort. I haven't tried with my new Windows 7 laptop. Too bad the DVD Flick menus weren't as nice as Windows DVD maker.

Yeah, i used flick and a few other apps like DVD decrypter and one or 2 others to get the entire process done. But this windows DVD maker is so much better as far as ease. A click or 2 and you come back in 30 mutes and your DVD is done. No worry, no thinking about it, just click bang. it's already there and dirt simple, so i really hate to install and deal with 2 or 3 other more complicated apps. All i want is a DVD that plays the correct aspect ratio. If i can get it to do that it would be an A+++ app. I don't need or want menus or any of that.

Well, i googled it and found this. Not sure if it works because i deleted the vidoe so i will have to wait till i have another video in widescreen i need to burn. But several people said this worked for them. One didn't but about 3 did.

The solution for this is to import the .avi file into Windows Movie Maker and go into options and select 16:9 and either PAL or NTSC, after doing that save the project file.

Close Windows Movie Maker and then open up Windows DVD Maker and click on 'add files' then add the project file you saved in Windows Movie Maker. This will import the .avi file in 16:9 format.