Convert standard DVD to anamorphic DVD?

[EmptyG]

Hello all...

I am working with a DVD that was created a while back for my family. It is a standard 4:3 DVD that is letterboxed. I am trying to convert it into an anamorphic (enhanced for 16:9 displays) DVD.

I know of a Windows program that can kinda do it, but let's face it, a Mac should be able to do this better

Any advice on where to start? A friend has Final Cut Studio I can use on his machine, so that is an option for me.

Thanks for any help!!

 

[Jessy]

Compressor has great cropping functionality. Throw it into that app and carve out the 16:9 frame, then use DVD Studio Pro to get the MPEG-2 output from Compressor onto a new DVD. Keep in mind it won't look great, because you're blowing up a smaller area of pixels.

It's probably easier just to use a different screen cropping mode on the TV set, though.

 

[EmptyG]

It's odd to me that there isn't a simpler solution than that.

Hmmm oh well. Hey thanks for the tip! Much appreciated

 

[er3l]

i dunno much about a lot of things (like what exactly is anamorphic v anything else) but i've had great luck with "MPEG Streamclip"

http://www.squared5.com

for example and this may be wicked way obvious and i just discovered the back of my hand but here goes...
if you have a 16:9 movie and want to letterbox it for 4:3 people you take your 16x9's pix width *3/4 then - the 16x9's current pix height to find how many pixels to add to the height and divide by 2 (some for the top and bottom -round off). tell streamclip to export and UNSCALED - same size - BUT set the top n bottom CROP to the NEGATIVE values.

get it? negative crop means expand - i like this software and i figure it'l probably do what you want it to too.

i think just crop the pixels off the top n bottom letterbox.

then in idvd - go off the happy friendly button board to 'one step from movie' in the project menu and it just slaps (encodes) the movie onto a dvd.

to really learn its ability, i play around with stuff til it does what i like or it breaks.

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