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OK, I have this bunch of videos shot with my camera and I want to gather them and burn a normal DVD that I can play back with my standerd (non-HD) DVD player connected to my wonderful 16:9 TV.

The videos are also 16:9 aspect ratio so I just put them together with DVD-Styler and burnt a DVD. The DVD plays right using my PC player (VLC, etc.) but strangely enough, when I play it back with my regular DVD player connected to my TV, the videos are "squashed" because two extra black stripes have been added on top and bottom of my TV screen.

Hence my first question: who put the two stripes there? My player? My TV?

I then tried and used DVD Flick and noticed it added two black stripes on each side of the videos, so that when played back on my TV player the resulting videos are displayed correctly as 16:9, but this time I got a black frame surrounding the video frame, the side stripes being added by DVD Flick, while the top and bottom stripes being added by the TV or the DVD player itself supposedly. It seems like DVD Flick knew better.

So my second question: can I get rid of those black stripes and use the full TV screen to display the videos in some way?

I understand the two programs I cited are front-ends to dvdauthor, so I will appreciate also a command-line solution to this problem.

Thank you very much.

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  • "legacy dvd" implies "standard-def" 4:3 ratio (or thereabout). So if you are authoring a standard DVD (AND the settings are set correctly) you are taking your original 16:9 video, and making it 4:3 probably by adding bars, but possibly by stretching/squashing. In addition, 16:9 tvs usually default to zoom or stretch for video sources which do not match. In all cases the tv will add bars when needed to fill the 16:9 rectangular viewing area. Some allow to change these bars, so you might change the color to something and this will show clearly which bits are from the tv and which are from DVD
    – horatio
    Jan 19, 2012 at 16:24
  • Sorry, with legacy DVD player I just meant a standalone DVD player connected to a PC, and not a "PC" player (e.g. VLC). Moreover the videos are squashed to an AR even higher than 16:9 and not to 4:3.
    – Overflow
    Jan 19, 2012 at 16:46
  • So yeah, a standard not high-def dvd player
    – horatio
    Jan 19, 2012 at 16:48
  • Right, a standard DVD player, thanks for pointing it out. I edited the question to reflect this.
    – Overflow
    Jan 19, 2012 at 16:53
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    The problem here is that you have multiple conversions going on, and possibly some auto-conversion on the DVD player AND the TV. (see for instance: thedigitalbits.com/articles/anamorphic/anamorphic185demo.html )
    – horatio
    Jan 19, 2012 at 17:37

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