burning dvd's aspect problem ?

fezbombmatt · 16 Jul 2011

hi i have a problem with burning films to dvd's.

i have alot of films on my pc in .avi format mostly a few in .mp4.

I used to use my old laptop with vista to burn these to blank discs using windows dvd maker, and there was no trouble.

But now i am using my new pc windows 7 with same dvd maker software and every disc i burn whether on 4:3 or 16:9 aspect setting, the video burnt to the disc is always stretched vertically.

Ive played the discs on the pc a old 4:3 aspect tv and a widescreen tv there is no difference.

and yes the films where fine before they were burnt.

Please help! :)

Wishmaster · 16 Jul 2011

When creating the DVD, you may need to force it to render in the correct aspect ratio.
If you are certain the DVD being burned is using the correct ratio settings, then it may be a issue with the playback device.

Does the playback device or software have a setting to maintain the aspect ratio?
It may be set to something such as fill screen.

Also, if playback is on the PC and the playback software is set to use hardware acceleration, you may need to check your graphics card settings.
It too has options for scaling. Keeping aspect ratio or filling screen.

This only applies if using HW acceleration and GPU scaling is enabled however.

fezbombmatt · 16 Jul 2011

not really only options on the wdvd maker software are to choose between the 2 aspects. i had a read of some instructions for the software too all its saying is use 16:9 for output for a widescreen, ive tried it on that widescreen with the aspect auto and 16:9 still no difference.

The weird thing is my laptop had no different settings as such, same software and no difference in video formats.

when playing the dvd back its as if all its missing is the letterbox mode so instead its stretching it vertically so i dont know what to do next.

Wishmaster · 16 Jul 2011

If the video is FullScreen, or 4:3, you need to set the DVD Maker to record the DVD as 4:3, not 16:9. Even if you have a 16:9 monitor.

This way, playback will have black bars on the left and right, but maintain the correct aspect ratio.

By setting it to encode at 16:9, your telling it to stretch the image to completely fill a 16:9 display, which is what you're trying to avoid it sounds like.

The Auto setting sometimes work, but have found they get it wrong sometimes as well. Better off manually setting it IMHO.

Now the other thing Id like mention is the source video. What is is resolution?
You may need to set this as well. hopefully the black bars have not been cropped, if they are supposed to be there.
This puts the video in a non-standard resolution and some encoders may have a issue getting it right when converting to DVD.

fezbombmatt · 16 Jul 2011

I've tried the 4:3 aspect option all it seems to do is make the output picture smaller in width obviously but the picture is still stretched vertically.

the source is a dvd rip not ripped by me its 608x256.

Have yiou used this dvd maker software? Its just it doesnt offer many settings ot the video if you have any other free software available that really works well let us no

thanks.

Wishmaster · 16 Jul 2011

The resolution itself may be the issue.

For DVD, Fullscreen common resolution is 720x480
For Widescreen resolution, 720x480 anamorphic.

Being as its only 256pixels high, the black bars seem to have been cropped.
So its attempting to stretch that image to fill the 480pixel hieght.

The only other option I know is try a different DVD conversion software that can simply correct it on its own to maintian the correct ratio.

Have you tried Windows Live Movie maker?

fezbombmatt · 18 Jul 2011

windows movie maker is a video editor am i wrong? not a dvd burning software i cant seem to find any burn facility

edit: sorry my mistake i found it :) thanks for your help