"The source you're extracting from is widescreen, non-animorphic. To make your "4x3" set, have you actually zoomed in and cut the edges of the picture off to make a 1.33:1 aspect ratio, or are you calling it "4x3" rather than "non-animorphic" and still leaving it widescreen (2.35:1)?"
I think you are confusing the terms "letterbox", "widescreen", and "anamorphic".
"I believe what MeBeJedi is referring to is the fact that all WideScreen laserdiscs are letterboxed meaning that they are at the correct ration but to make them fit on the standard 4:3 screen black bars are added to the top and bottom. So, what you have in the case of Star Wars is a 2.35:1 image that has had black bars placed on the top and bottom to fill out the full 1.33:1 (4x3) TV screen. This is very unfortunate but necessary considering that we didn't have 16:9 TVs at the time."
Precisely. That being said, keep in mind that 16x9 translates to a 1.78:1 ratio. Star Wars was shot at 2.35:1, so while it will still have black bars at the top and bottom, they will be less than half the size of those found on a 4x3 (1.33:1) transfer.
"These new black bars will be solid black and much cleaner than the fuzzy grayish and pixelated black bars you will get from letterboxed video. Another great thing about cropping out the black bars is that the encoding time will be dramatically reduced."
And I was very happy to figure out how to do this to my masters in VirtualDub.
"I hope MeBeJedi is doing this (the cropping) for his non-anamorphic version. If not, MeBeJedi, please crop those bars"
See above.
"FYI, a letterboxed DVD can be made to be 16:9 Anamorphic without re-encoding the DVD..."
And still maintain the aspect ratio? (Do you post on Videohelp too! LOL!)
Also, technically speaking, "anamorphic" DVDs are not truly anamorphic. The process is are quite the opposite, actually, though it doesn't make a whole lot of difference to most people.
