Need conceptual advice for 16:9/4:3 menus

Question

Hi,
First off I should say that I am undertaking my most ambitious DVD project to date and I am in well over my head. I want to order a book(s) and would appreciate any advice regarding which book(s) might best deal with the type of issues I am about to explain. BTW I am still using DVD Studio Pro 2.
So here it is:
I have a 16:9 feature and 16:9 menus. My issue is their appearance in 4:3.
When displayed on a 4:3 monitor, I want the 16:9 menus cropped to full frame (pan and scan) and the feature to play 4:3 letterboxed. Since it seems like there might be some counter-intuitive aspects to this process, some general conceptual guidance on the authoring and menu design would be great. I am hoping that the authoring can be done with this sort of “mix and match” way and not pan and scan OR forced letter box for both menus AND video. Here is what I am sussing out so far:
1) I should set “force to pan and scan” in the disc inspector. I am assuming that this setting is ONLY for the menus (as they appear on 4:3). And if I am forcing a pan and scan crop of the menus I can just use the same overlay file for both 16:9 and 4:3. I just need to make sure my 16:9 menus are visible and can function once cropped to 4:3.
2) Regarding the video tracks: It looks like I might have to put the feature on two different tracks, one designated to play 4:3 and the other to play 16:9 letterbox in the track inspector? (why it is not labeled 4:3 letterbox and 16:9 is still a mystery to me). And it is at this point (that soon!) that things start to get cloudy. Because suddenly it seems that if I do that, I need two separate menus (rather than the 16:9 doubling as the 4:3), a16:9 one to point to the 16:9 video track and the 4:3 to point to the 4:3 letterboxed video track. Ideally a 16:9 the menu would point to track 1 and it would play 16:9, and when watching a 4:3 the 16:9 menu would automatically crop to 4:3 letterbox and point to track 1 which would then play 4:3 letterbox. Is that just some crazy dream or can it really work like that? So what is the story here?
3) If I am forced to use two separate menus, a whole other series of questions are raised. But I won’t go there just yet.
So you can easily see that I really have little idea of what I am doing in this regard and am in need of some expert advice. Thanks in advance.
-Thomas

Answer 1

Hi Thomas
If you are using DVD Stuido Pro 2 Force to Pan and Scan doesn't work. Not sure if it works in later version of DVD-SP (Don't think it did in V3 and not sure about V4). We do quite a few widescreen 16:9 movies and I'd do it like this: If you feature is 16:9 set that to 16:9 Letterbox. On the Disc Properties (i.e. click on the disc at the uppermost part of the disc layout set the Menus to Force to letterbox. Create your menus in 16:9 and set them to 16:9 Letterbox.
That way when the disc is played on a widescreen set the menus and track will display as widescreen (as they should) and when played on a 4:3 set they display with Letterbox - apart from the fact that the Force Pan and Scan doesn'y work properly (the highlights on your menus won't line up properly), I personally think this is preferable... especially when it comes to the movie itself. When a movie is Pan and Scanned on broadcast tv (which happens less and less these days) the film's action is "tracked" so that the most important info is displayed on screen and Pan and Scan Vectors are created. If you set your track so that it displays as 4:3 on a 4:3 set then basically you will only see the centre of the screen/action. Why would you want that? I thiunk most people with 4:3 sets are used to seeing widescreen letterboxed movies these days.
Hope that helps
Steve