I am trying to put my video from a digital DV camcorder onto a PAL DVD that
will dispay in 16:9. It seems that I am getting a letter box display when
playing back the produced DVD as there are black bars on top and below the
video. This is the process I am using.

I retrieve the video from the DV capture option in vegas 7. This seems to be
retrieving the recorded 16:9 video into the media library correctly as
16:9. I have confirmed this by mouse 3 -> properties. Attributes are 720x576
and Pixel ratio is 1.4568 (PAL DV widescreen). My project properties are
using template PAL DV widescreen (720x576, 25.000fps) with pixel ratio of
1.4568. I Render As: using the same PAL DV Widescreen template to create a
Video for Windows avi file. I now import this file into architect 4 and add
a menu or 2. Looking at the File -> properties -> Disc properties I can see
that I am using PAL Widescreen (720x576). I now Burn the DVD. When I now
put it into a DVD player with a 40" plasma screen I see the video is full
width but I have bars at the top and bottom. I can also see that the picture
is streached and I am missing some of the picture on the left and right od the
screen.

What silly thing am I doing wrong.

the letterbox effect happens when either your TV or player cant handle 16:9 widescreen format
: in this case it looks like your TV set

...........or DVD Player settings.

Thanks for the help but I have now gone to several DVD/TV combinations around the
neighbourhood and have concluded that is is not the display devices that are at fault. There
is definately something wrong with my production process as this DVD is the only disc that
is causing problems on playback with 4 different systems. It looks to me that the original
16:9 video is being stretched as if it was a 4:3 format.

Please confirm all your settings are 16x9 - that's from Capture > Edit ( Vegas?) > Render > DVDA > Final BURN!!

Please do that and report back.