# Wide Screen (16:9) converter



## toneyx (Oct 23, 2005)

Anyone who can recommend a software for converting wide screen (16:9) to full screen (4:3)?


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## thecoalman (Mar 6, 2006)

By far the best method is to use the zoom or options on your DVD player. Anyway you do it will require cropping and reencoding resulting in quality loss. Only way to avoid cropping and reencoding is simply changing the 16:9 (for anamorphic only) to 4:3 but that will also ruin the aspect..... Balls will look like eggs.


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## toneyx (Oct 23, 2005)

How about using Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe Encore DVD software? But if you can recommend a faster way to convert wide screen to full screen a better way. Anyhow I know it will take time to convert but I want to experience what will the outcome of the product. Thanks


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## thecoalman (Mar 6, 2006)

Either of those will work, depends on what you want to do. I'm not famialir with either so I can't give you specific directions. The easiest is simply change the aspect ratio, you should be able to accomplish that in Encore. Authoring software sets the flag that a DVD player sees, but again you can see how this looks simply by adjuting your DVD player to play it full screen. Most have that option.....

You could crop it using Premeire... then reencode and author it in Encore.... and again it's the same as zooming except it's going to look a whole lot worse. When you crop it has to be either scaled up to the original resolution which is going to reduce the quality, specifically it will produce macroblocking or you have to reduce the resolution which reduces the detail.


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## toneyx (Oct 23, 2005)

I have no Wide Screen TV and when you adjust the aspect ratio it looks awful like what you've written when zooming the player. I've got plenty of DVD in my archive and most of them are in 16:9 aspect ratio. Anyhow thanks for the advise.


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## thecoalman (Mar 6, 2006)

There should be black bars top and bottom, if not you don't have the DVD player set up right. The black bars can be annoying to some but it's the only way to display it correctly in a 16:9 format on a 4:3 TV. It should look fine except for the bars.


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## linskyjack (Aug 28, 2004)

You can't convert from 16:9 to 4:3 without messing up your video. What yu can do is crop the 16:9 footage---In most NLE's you can create a track with black bars that are in 4:3 ration above your footage. The crop will then appear on your monitor without any loss of quality to the picture. The only problem is that you might lose parts of the image because you are essentially pulling the sides in.


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## thecoalman (Mar 6, 2006)

linskyjack said:


> What yu can do is crop the 16:9 footage---In most NLE's you can create a track with black bars that are in 4:3 ration above your footage. The crop will then appear on your monitor without any loss of quality to the picture.


You wouldn't be cropping it but scaling it down to fit on a 4:3 matte. This would also defeat the purpose if it's to get it to display full screen. You still have 16:9 displaying except now it's on a 4:3 matte. It will reduce the quality especially if the source material is of a high quality, you've reduced the resolution and reencoded it. Loss in quality is inevitable. Add to that it would now be letterboxed on all four sides when played on on a 16:9 TV.

Only reason I can see for doing that would be if you want to output to VHS through a device that doesn't add the black bars. Besides that there is no reason for doing this.


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## linskyjack (Aug 28, 2004)

You wont lose any appreciable quailty if you place your matte (I was trying to use laymen's terms) on the timeline above your footage, then render as an avi.


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## thecoalman (Mar 6, 2006)

linskyjack said:


> You wont lose any appreciable quailty if you place your matte (I was trying to use laymen's terms) on the timeline above your footage, then render as an avi.


I don't understand what your saying, where or how the matte is placed is irrelevant because the only way to get 16:9 on a 4:3 frame is to scale it down so it fits.


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## linskyjack (Aug 28, 2004)

You are not scaling down----you are merely cropping the top and the bottom of the 4:3 to make it 16:9---you are essentially masking part of the frame, but the over all quality of the image remains the same. (You are just cutting off part of it) We do it all the time---We begin by using black gaffers tape on our camera LCD to act as a guide---helps with making sure we get what we want in frame. Then we take the 4:3 video into the NLE and place a .png on the track above that video that is a transparency with two black bars in the 16:9 ration. We then render out the project. Its fake 16:9, but it you certainly don't lose anything and the quality is the same.


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## thecoalman (Mar 6, 2006)

linskyjack said:


> You are not scaling down----you are merely cropping the top and the bottom of the 4:3 to make it 16:9---you are essentially masking part of the frame,.


Now I understand what you are saying, I do that my self with VHS adding 10 px borders to mask the overscan but... the OP wants to go from 16:9 to 4:3.....


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## MysticEyes (Mar 30, 2002)

With MainConcept Enc you could keep trimming (crop) the sides (L,R), or Scale (unticking 'keep proportions'), until the aspect ratio looks correct.


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## linskyjack (Aug 28, 2004)

I know of the mainconcept codecs---what is mainconcept enc?


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## MysticEyes (Mar 30, 2002)

http://www.mainconcept.com/site/index.php?id=813


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## linskyjack (Aug 28, 2004)

Got ya.


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