Why not widescreen?

Ian in Northampton · #1 (**permalink**) 05-02-2006, 01:47 PM

OK, team, I originally posted this question ("A Man For All Seasons") a couple of weeks or so back, but I'm still struggling with the same problem.

To recap:

I've ripped a DVD using both DVD Shrink and Clone DVD to my hard drive.
I've set up a widescreen project in Premiere Pro
I've renamed a .vob file as an .mpg file and imported it into the Premiere Pro project (as suugested in my previous thread)
I've successfully added a new title to the .mpg file
However: when I export the project to DVD, it comes out as a 4:3 aspect ratio project, despite the original movie being widescreen and despite the renamed .mpg file playing in widescreen

This is for my father's birthday, and it's now only a couple of weeks away, and I'm getting desperate. Does anyone have any idea why I can't import a widescreen .mpg into Premiere Pro, edit it and then export it as a widescreen movie?

Crusty · #2 (**permalink**) 05-02-2006, 02:03 PM

Does Premier Pro support Multi-VTS DVDs? Also does it have wide screen menus?

Single VTS DVDs must have all parts the same aspect ratio and format. If your DVD authoring software can't do multi-VTS, then you'll have to create widescreen menus and make sure every mpg used is widescreen.

Ian in Northampton · #3 (**permalink**) 05-02-2006, 04:28 PM

Thanks Crusty. Just to clarify, I'm working with only one of the .vob's from the original DVD. I don't need to replicate the whole DVD, just one sequence, and that will be 'pure' video with no menus etc.

Alan Mills · #4 (**permalink**) 05-02-2006, 07:14 PM

Try the following....

make sure your start with a widescreenpreset in Premiere Pro.
Import your mpg.
Right click on the MPG file (I think) and select interpret as and make sure you 'remind' premiere pro it is 16:9 (i.e. non-square pixels).
As long as it all inside a widescrene project then it should be fine.

Ian in Northampton · #5 (**permalink**) 05-03-2006, 08:04 AM

Thanks Alan. I'll try that and let you know how I get on.

Ian in Northampton · #6 (**permalink**) 05-08-2006, 06:39 PM

Alan: I promised you I'd get back to you on this - and the result is... I owe you a beer. Brilliant! I clicked on 'Interpret Footage' and then 'Conform To' in the Pixel Aspect Ratio box. It was set to regular PAL - I reset to PAL widescreen and hey presto. Given that it was widescreen footage to start with, I don't know why it wouldn't automatically select the right pixel sapect ratio, but there you go...

If anyone cares, I think I also solved - well, not 'solved' but developed a theory about - why I couldn't import the second and third .vob files (renamed as .mpg files) into the project. They may have been called .mpg, but Premiere didn't see them that way - Premiere just saw a file format it didn't recognise, and fell over. (I discovered this when trying out various mpeg joining tools - they claimed that the second and third files weren't mpeg files). My guess is that when you have a sequence of .vob files, only the first contains some kind of .mpg-like header information, which a DVD assumes is carried on in subsequent files. If you arbitrarily rename them as .mpg files, the first one will work - but the lack of header information in subsequent ones means that they won't.

So I didn't solve the problem - I just did a cut down (credits only) version of the movie for my father - but, like I said, I think I understood why Premiere acted the way it did. If anyone has any further insight into this, I'd be delighted to hear it.

Thanks again Alan.

Alan Mills · #7 (**permalink**) 05-08-2006, 08:54 PM

Originally Posted by Ian in Northampton

Alan: I promised you I'd get back to you on this - and the result is... I owe you a beer. Brilliant!

Ian, Of course you realise that this IOU is now on permanent record. I'll hold you to it at the next videoforum.

Ian in Northampton · #8 (**permalink**) 05-09-2006, 09:14 AM

Alan: absolutely! Cheers (sic)! Ian