Dvd won't play widescreen

Question

Using iDVD 6.03. I've made a widescreen project and burned the DVD, but it doesn't play in widescreen format on my widescreen TV...neither of them. It plays standard (4:3 format).
What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

Any reason not to update to 10.4.11?
The fdollowing is much easier than it looks!
HOW TO MAINTAIN 16:9 ASPECT FROM IMPORT TO BURN
This is the way I do it. There is no compulsion on you to do it my way, but this works (for me). I started this method before iMovie and iDVD were upgraded to 6.0.3, and because not all elements of the various iDVD themes (particularly the pre-iDVD 6 ones) are consistent in keeping to 16:9 throughout the process.
The widescreen preview works just fine when you check your finished project within iDVD. The problem only happens when you either burn a project or save it to an image.
In this ‘How To’ article: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2938
Apple suggest one reason why this is so:
“When you play a widescreen DVD on a standard size television, the text or buttons on a widescreen menu may approach the edge of the display, or appear cut-off.
When you are creating your DVD, be sure to keep in mind the audience who will be playing this disc. If you use a widescreen (16:9) theme and import widescreen footage for example, this will create a widescreen DVD by default. Consider whether the intended recipients of your DVD may be using a standard size TV (4:3) or a widescreen TV.
The movies you import as part of this project will likely play back letterboxed on standard television sets so that all of the content is visible. However, the DVD menu screens may be played as full screen with this configuration. As a result, some of the text or buttons in a widescreen DVD may not be visible on a standard size television.
To avoid this, turn on the options for both Show TV Safe Area and Show Standard Crop Area from the View menu when assembling your menu screens in iDVD. Make sure that all buttons, text, and other elements that you want visible for both widescreen and standard screen audiences are positioned inside the innermost area indicator.”
However, a bug in iDVD 6, particularly when working with PAL, and which has been reported to Apple, is that the sub-menus in many of the themes (the chapter settings) default to 4:3 aspect, NTSC and mpeg 1, instead of the desired 16:9 in mpeg 2 in PAL. This may be partly a leftover from iDVD 5 or even a newer ‘feature’ of iDVD 6. Here is my failsafe workaround, which sounds a lot more complicated when reading about it, that it is in practice.
Living in the UK, I use PAL (25 fps). Wherever you see a reference to PAL (25 fps) in the following you may substitute NTSC (30 fps) in the various settings mentioned (if you don’t live in Europe), the basic idea is the same. I still use this method, and take these steps, regardless of whether it is always necessary. Worst case scenario: it would have worked anyway. Best case scenario: it works perfectly where it otherwise wouldn’t!
The object of the exercise is therefore to ‘fix’ all constituent parts of the project (video, titles, theme, effects, even audio!) in the desired 16:9 aspect to avoid producing a DVD where the movie is in 16:9 and the menu is in 4:3 or where other irritating surprises lurk in your project, which you only discover after burning a coaster!
First go to http://www.mydvdedit.com/index.php?lang=english and download myDVDedit. This is shareware although the download is free. Send the guy a few dollars/euros, he deserves it. While you are there, read all about it. Now install it in your Applications Folder. You will need it later.
You have finished your iMovie project with music, transitions and so on, and saved it to you Movies Folder. Before you started the project you naturally set it to DV Widescreen.
Open iDVD. Give the project a name, and save it as Widescreen if it didn’t default to the same aspect as your iMovie project. Now import the iMovie project into iDVD, choose a theme (any theme you like, even if it prefers to stay at 4:3) and save the project. Do what you would normally do to the theme and its drop zones. Save the project.
Now save as Disk Image on your desktop. Leave it there for the moment when it has finished/appeared.
Open your Movies Folder. Create a new folder. Name it PROJECTNAME – TS FILES (where ‘projectname’ is the name of your project!). Close the folder. You can of course call it anything you like, but this aids identification.
Now double-click the disk image on your desktop. It contains two folders: AUDIO_TS (which is empty, but please pretend that it isn’t) and VIDEO_TS. Drag and drop these to the folder you created in your Movies Folder. (This takes a moment).
Click on the AUDIO_TS folder and go to Get Info in the file menu. Right down the bottom is where you have to change the permissions. Under ‘Ownership & Permissions’ change this from Read Only to Read & Write. Click the small triangle next to Details, scroll down and click on ‘Apply to enclosed items’. You will be asked for your root password. Close the get info window, and now click on the VIDEO_TS folder and do the same. Close the Projectname-TS Files folder. You have now allowed yourself to change the properties of the contents of those folders, which leads us to the next all-important step.
Open myDVDedit. Go to File and open the projectname TS Files folder. By all means stare at it shock and awe, but don’t bother finding out what it can do, except for the following:
Top left you fill see a list of files. Lower centre you have a large window. On the vertical menu to the left of that, click te middle one (VTS or VMG).
In the window at the top left, ignore ‘First Play’ (if there was anything to correct in that, myDVDedit will have done so and told you).
Click on VMG Menu en (English). Now the whole thing springs to life.
Set Coding Mode to MPEG-2 (if it isn’t already)
Set Standard to PAL (or NTSC if that is what you want)
Set Aspect to 16:9 (not any of the other options)
Now save the file.
Click on VTS Menu 1 en (English) and repeat as above.
Click on VTS Menu 2 and repeat as above.
You have now permanently ‘fixed’ the entire contents of the TS folder (the disk image) in 16:9 aspect. Close myDVDedit – you won’t need it again until the next project!
If you have Toast 7 Titanium, open it. ‘Select DVD-Video from VIDEO_TS’. Choose Select from the main Toast window and select your projectname-TS Files folder. You are now ready to burn! You can set the burn speed (2x recommended) before the burn commences. Allow Toast to verify the burn before you eject the DVD-R disk.
If you don’t have Toast 7, then I assume you can burn the projectname-TS Files folder (disk image) via Disk Utility. I say ‘assume’ only because I have never tried it that way.
Either way, you now have a DVD which will play as 16:9 widescreen on any TV set, even the old ones where you can’t ask it to letter-box.