I've read and searched on the subject...I have a few more questions.

I know that for people who still have 4:3 TV's, their DVD player SHOULD re-size the image so it looks right (letterbox). For those of you who provide widescreen DVD's to clients...do you ever get any complaints from people who can't get the DVD's to play right on their 4:3 TV's? Do you put any kind of note on the labels telling people to make sure their DVD players are setup correctly?

I'm shooting HDV for the first time (canon XLh1). I have a bunch of live performances and graduations to shoot in the upcoming months...I'm providing a lot of DVD's and I'm hoping that the transition to widescreen doesn't cause any headaches.

Thanks!

Most new Hollywood films released on DVD are widescreen versions, and have been for awhile now. Most folks with 4:3 televisions and a DVD player have been pretty well exposed to that.

Never had a complaint. I deliver almost all my DVDs in anamorphic widescreen (16:9).

- Martin

cool...thanks guys.

Most regular non-upconverting DVD players are set to letterbox widescreen on a 4:3 display as a default so you shouldn't have any issues.

Here is what I did just recently for a client.

Took HD footage in final cut and exported it via compressor

Threw mpeg 2 and the audio settings on it and saved it to a folder

Brought the audio and video tracks into DVD studio pro and flagged the track by pressing the F key which makes a flag appear on the track.

Burned it and what not like a normal DVD.

On a ps2 and a normal SD TV it was letterboxed. In my bosses dvd player and his HD widescreen TV the image filled the screen 16:9 anamorphic. With that same DVD player, however, connected to a SD TV we did not get letterbox but a squeezed 16:9 anamorphic picture. Some DVD players just don't read the flag I guess.

Just remember to do ALL the compression in 16:9.

If you are really concerned about the image filling up the screen you could put two tracks on there and have buttons on the menu accordingly or just do it 4:3 letterboxed and the HD TV people can just zoom in the image. That will not fix the aspect ratio problem though.

In my bosses dvd player and his HD widescreen TV the image filled the screen 16:9 anamorphic. With that same DVD player, however, connected to a SD TV we did not get letterbox but a squeezed 16:9 anamorphic picture. Some DVD players just don't read the flag I guess.James,

Just to make sure: you DID reconfigure your boss's DVD player to 4:3 output when you connected it to the SD TV, didn't you? There is no way for a player to auto-sense what type of TV is connected. So without properly configuring the DVD player for the TV aspect ratio, what you described is exactly what should happen.

- Martin