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1. Re: Displaying 16X9 Menus as 4X3
Joe Bowden Feb 24, 2008 9:30 PM (in response to (Kevin_Voisine))>Many DVDs are made with 16X9 menus but display properly on 4X3 TVs. They just crop off the sides and display the center portion of the menu.
Many would argue that letterboxing a 16:9 menu in a 4:3 display is displaying it properly. After all, that's how widescreen video as a whole is displayed on 4:3 displays.
The behavior you are expecting would be a feature request - and hopefully one that could be chosen by the user at build time or as a project preference, because I don't think all users would want that behavior. -
2. Re: Displaying 16X9 Menus as 4X3
Neil Wilkes Feb 25, 2008 2:20 AM (in response to (Kevin_Voisine))I'm with jbowden on this one.
Letterboxing is far better than the cropped "Pan & SCan" alternative.
Setting safe areas would be a never-ending nightmare. Plus you are simply not seeing what the designer intended you to. -
3. Re: Displaying 16X9 Menus as 4X3
(Kevin_Voisine) Feb 26, 2008 3:50 PM (in response to (Kevin_Voisine))I like being able to letterbox a movie but not a menu. The intent is aimed for filling in the screen of a 16X9 TV so the menu is not stretched or letterboxed vertically.
If a 16X9 movie is displayed on a 4X3 tv, its letterboxed. This is so that no part of the scene is hidden. If that same DVD is displayed on a 16x9 tv, it fills the screen. Menus are doing the same thing, which is what you agree is better. However, letterboxing a menu means the buttons are displayed smaller on a 4x3 tv. Plus, 16x9 menus typically don't contain anything outside the 4x3 safe area in the center of the menu. Cropping off the sides to fill a 4x3 tv loses nothing.
I believe menus should be created so they fill the screen properly no matter what the shape of the display (16x9 or 4x3).
This is a feature request thread and thats all I'm asking. It may be a feature not everyone will use, but I bet many will.
It almost seems like to add this feature would require a complete rewrite of the program and I'm trying to be convinced it's not worth the effort.
DVD Lab Pro has many of the "missing" features in Encore (such as the menu option I'm requesting, cell and cell commands, buttons on video, multiple video tracks, and more), but has its own list of downfalls, like the inability to real time preview and built in transcoding. It's a balancing act between software and features. The future is widescreen high def and I would like to see more options available to suite the transitional time from 4x3 to 16x9 until the future gets here.
Thanks for the feedback. -
4. Re: Displaying 16X9 Menus as 4X3
Joe Bowden Feb 26, 2008 5:16 PM (in response to (Kevin_Voisine))I don't think it would be very difficult to implement, but during my Encore tenure it was never high on the list of feature requests for future versions.
As a feature request, if it is implemented I think it should probably be a menu property that could be selected or not, at the author's discretion, with a sensible default value. -
5. Re: Displaying 16X9 Menus as 4X3
Phil Griffith Jul 8, 2008 10:04 AM (in response to (Kevin_Voisine))Maybe I'm missing something here but wouldn't it just be a matter of editing the menu itself? Encore doesn't really have anything to do with it other than displaying what is already there. I know in the menu library there are both 16x9 and 4x3 menus. Am I missing something? -
6. Re: Displaying 16X9 Menus as 4X3
Neil Wilkes Oct 2, 2008 5:48 AM (in response to (Kevin_Voisine))>Maybe I'm missing something here but wouldn't it just be a matter of editing the menu itself? Encore doesn't really have anything to do with it other than displaying what is already there. I know in the menu library there are both 16x9 and 4x3 menus. Am I missing something?
Yes, sadly.
There are very specific rules for DVD creation. One of these is that you cannot mix & match 4:3 and 16:9 images in the same VTS.
A VTS is structured as a series of VOB files in the Video_TS folder and it works something like this:
VTS_01_0.VOB = 4:3 Menus for that VTS
VTS_01_1.VOB = 4:3 Video footage broken into 1Gb chunks
VTS_01_2.VOB = 4:3 Second part of above
VTS_02_0.VOB = 16:9 Menus for this VTS
VTS_02_1.VOB = 16:9 Video Footage yada etc.
(Of course, you are not forced to have the 4:3 first.)
If you do this in DVD-Lab Pro, you must create a separate VTS for each Aspect Ratio.
Each VTS has it's own VTSM (Video Title Set Menus) that must match the footage aspect ratio.
You can also create VMGM (Video ManaGer Menus) that are independant of the VTSM sets. As Encore is an Abstraction Layer tool, it should be possible - with planning - to create all your main navigational menus as 4:3, yet have the Video Footage as 16:9. This will look like crap on a 16:9 TV though.
Your only other solution is Pan & Scan - and I can already hear the shouting & whining when all of a sudden we get some bright spark complaining abou the following problems with Pan & Scan:
1 - Motion Video footage being cropped.
2 - Background Images being cropped
3 - Buttons missing due to being cropped.
Pan & Scan is frankly a mess.....just my 0.02 worth.




