4:3 and 16:9 material on a DVD?
 

Can you have both 4:3 and 16:9 content on the same DVD? If I'm not mistaken, the answer is yes IF each movie on the DVD maintains a constant aspect ratio. Is that correct?

Why am I asking? I want to shoot 16:9 video for a friend's DVD project, but he already has manyh months of 4:3 footage that he also needs included. He doesn't want me shooting in 16:9 for fear of something not displaying correctly.

Here's what I think and would like someone to confirm:

Depending on NLE settings, clips on the timeline can either retain their original aspect ratio or be stretched to the project's chosen aspect ratio. In the case of using 4:3 clips in a 16:9 project, the 4:3 footage will not look distorted but will display with black bars on the sides. Is that correct?

Thanks for chiming in!

TJB

Tim,

You can certainly mix both aspects in a single movie, if you squeeze/letterbox as necessary to convert all footage to a single aspect.

You can also include footage of both aspects as separate movies, provided your DVD authoring software supports multiple VST's.

Josh

I don't know which software you're using for authoring, but DVD Studio Pro allows you to flag each clip you add to the DVD as 4:3 or 16:9 in order to tell it how to display it. This allows you to have different aspect ratios without having to worry too much. I'm not sure if other software does this or not so it may be something to look into.

you need a dvd authoring app that's capable of doing multiple vts's:
http://www.mediachance.com/dvdlab/Helppro/vts.htm

most cheap dvd authoring software will not do that... but dvdlabpro will:
http://www.mediachance.com/dvdlab/dvdlabpro.html