Watching my copy of Criterion Robocop DVD is pain on my widescreen tv as its either in pillar box mode where I get black bars on all 4 sides or zoomed where it cuts off the top and bottom.
What's the easiest way to convert it to 16:9 where you will only get black bars at the side?
Using DVD Rebuilder, which has an option to convert 4:3 to 16:9, is the easiest way to do it.
Agreed, Chewtobacca. DVD Rebuilder is the, um, stuff.
Dr. M
Great thanks. Do I need to rip the DVD with another tool beforehand? What about copy protection?
To rip the disc (and remove copy protection in the process), I would use the trial of AnyDVD or DVDFab HD Decrypter, which, in spite of the HD in its name, can rip DVDs. Then I would use DVD Rebuilder.
Haven't got round to trying this yet. I live in 2 places and haven't had much access to my PC.
Just wondering will DVD Rebuilder's 4:3 to 16:9 be straight forward for a movie in 1.66:1 ratio? Or will I need to manually add black bars on the sides?
The AR should not affect the function, but you'll have to see what happens.
I think it will probably crop the top and bottom by default, but it's possible to edit the script before encoding to correct this.
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Ok I have finally given it a go and when I choose the 4:3 LB to 16:9 option in DVD-RB, it crops the top and bottom so that it fits the sides to a 16:9 frame. What do I need to do?
Regardless of that, the quality of the output is also not very good despite setting HC encoder to BEST and making sure its set to DVD9.
Can anyone help?
Thanks.
Ok this method has appeared to have done the trick - http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=138785
However still having quality problems with encoding with HCEnc.
According to the HC.INI file which is written after preparing, MAXBITRATE is set to over 8000 which I've reading is about as high as you should go.