Emergency Question Re: Aspect Ratio

Question

I'm shooting for the first time today with an HD Camera. I'm going to shoot in SD, but which aspect ratio? 16:9 or 4:3? I don't know what type of TV the video will ultimately be viewed on, but I'd like the flexibility for it to look great on both widescreen and standard TVs (letterboxed).
Thanks.

Answer 1

I'd like the flexibility for it to look great on both widescreen and standard TVs (letterboxed).
Agreed. It's a subjective thing, but widescreens conforms more closely to the area of vision of the human eye. Here is how I achieve that. (see the punch line at the end):
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.
The reason this bug is present is because iDVD incorrectly sets a single binary value to 1 instead of 0 in the .IFO and .BUP files that correspond to widescreen .VOB titles. If this value is set to 1, it instructs a DVD player to prohibit shifting to widescreen mode, even though another binary value that specifies the 16:9 format instead of 4:3 is properly set.
The simple translation of how to fix it is to open the .IFO and .BUP files, change the value (you do it in hexadecimal, which means it changes from 4F to 4E), save, then burn to DVD.
The reality is, it’s a bit trickier because you have to first copy iDVD’s disk image to your hard drive, change the read-only permissions on both the files and the VIDEO_TS folder to permit writing, save the changes, then run the whole folder through DVD Imager which saves a new disk image to burn that will be recognizable by DVD players.
That was one way to do it (and applies particularly to iDVD 5) but if, like me, you don’t fancy mucking about with hexadecimal, then here is an alternative.
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. Either way, it is annoying when it happens, and we must hope Apple cure it in iDVD 7. In the meantime here is my failsafe workaround, which sounds a lot more complicated when reading about it, that it is in practise.
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 IFO.
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.