OK, now I have a very specific technical question regarding .m2v encoding.
I have been able to resize correctly to 16:9, and verified it against the 2004 disks. However, there is one small point I need to make sure I'm doing correctly...
I am using TMPGEnc to encode to mpeg2. One of the parameters is the output aspect ratio. It allows me to select 4:3, 16:9, or 2:11...(can't remember the exact numbers on the third one - but that choice is irrelevant anyways because if I choose that, DVD-Lab claims it isn't compliant with encoding to DVD). The question is, should I choose 4:3 or 16:9. Now, before you tell me that I'm stupid for even asking, hear me out...
It doesn't seem to matter on both DVD players I've tried with my widescreen plasma TV. In both cases, if I view it in 16:9 it properly stretches the image across the width of the screen. And, in both cases, if I view it in 4:3, it produces the same gray side bars in both cases and uses the same provided letterbox. I can't tell any difference whether I selected 4:3 or 16:9 during encoding to .m2v. Also, to my consternation, BOTH versions fail to squish to the proper aspect ratio if I set the aspect ratio on the TV to 4:3 (i.e., it doesn't add additional letterbox in either case).
However, there is SOME difference in the resulting files, because the icons that are created in DVD-Lab when I open up the .m2v files are different - one icon has larger letterboxes than the other. My question is, what is the difference in the .m2v files? Is it just meta information stored along with the video, that some applications use? Is my television somehow compensating and the end result just looks the same on that particular set? Is the difference significant, and should I care? Is it normal for the 4:3 playback to still look unsquished (too tall)? I thought that anamorphic DVDs were supposed to have correct aspect ratio regardless of playback at 4:3 or 16:9 (mine are only correct if I set my TV to 16:9).
I know this is a lot of questions, but I want to make sure and encode this thing correctly.