Aspect ratio in Express Burn

[MArk Clark]

I've just downloaded the Express Burn app which seems to be the answer to burning DVDs for my homeplayer except that the aspect ratio is not quite right. There seem to be only two options, 16:9 and 4:3. My video is definitely nearer 16:9 for my widescreen tv and on that setting  it fills the screen nicely form side to side but I have a border top and bottom and everyone looks a bit horizontally challenged! Are there other settings in the upgraded version, and if not is there anything I can do to make it right?

I am converting from a .mov file.

Thanks

[Chris75]

Hello Mark Clark. The aspect ratio will depend on the original video settings.  For example, if the original video is 4:3 and you select the output to be 16:9 then the image will be stretched to try filling up the widescreen aspect ratio, and this causes the black borders on top and bottom.

If your videos are originally on 4:3 aspect ratio, it would be better to keep them that way when you burn it to avoid distorting the image.

You can also consider using a video editing software like VideoPad to edit the videos and try changing the aspect ratio without distorting the image too much. 

[MArk Clark]

Thank you for your advice. Much appreciated.

 

[Chanter]

MArk Clark, I agree with Chris75. It seems that ExpressBurn looks at the pixel ratio, and takes this as the aspect ratio for the video. This is somewhat unfortunate, in that DVDs for Region 2 (USA, Japan, etc) often use a pixel ratio of 720x480. 720/480=1.5, which is neither 4:3 nor 16:9. Indeed, ExpressBurn makes DVDs using a pixel ratio of 720x480! My solution is to used VideoPad to change the pixel ratio. Bring the file into VideoPad. Set the video display to either 4:3 or 16:9 ratio (sounds like your video is closer to 16:9, so select that one). Select "Video Effects", then "Scale" from the menu of options presented. At that point, adjust the "Horizontal (ratio)" or "Vertical (ratio)" (they are locked together by default - see "Keep Aspect Ratio" at the bottom of the "Scale" function box) so that the edges of the video touch the edges of the video display box. In your case, this would be only the top and bottom edges of the video, since the video is less than 1.78 ratio. Then save the video with the proper pixel ratio. This can get involved if you are trying to retain the best quality. For example, I am presently working on 4:3 ratio video that has a pixel ratio of 720x480. I will save it with a pixel ratio of 720x540 (4:3 ratio). If this were a wide screen video, I would have saved it at 854x480 (as close as I can get to 16:9, using even integers). I try to match one of the two numbers in the pixel ratio (either 720 or 480), and increase the pixel count for the other number that I cannot match, in order to get the proper pixel ratio (and thus proper video aspect ratio). I don't like having to re-scale a video just to have ExpressBurn re-scale it back to what I started with, but that is how things work, at least for now.