Handling DVD "Letterbox" widescreen?

[OldTimerToo]

I am in the process of converting my DVD collection into MKV for use with external hard drives and WD TV Live. For the most part, MakeMKV does a wonderful job and I'm pleased with the results - especially when it comes to switchable subtitles.

However, I have a problem converting any letterboxed DVDs from full screen letterbox format to widescreen. I can't figure out what settings to juggle (if there are any) to force the conversion to the widescreen format. I have played around with Handbrake and while it will convert the video to a format that makes use of the width of the TV, MakeMKV leaves it in the 4:3 full screen letterboxed format. I've purchased new BD copies of some films (such as Hunt for Red October), but others are not available in a BD edition. A good example of this is the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which includes both Full screen and widescreen on flip sides of the DVD. When I use MakeMKV, the widescreen ends up letterboxed in a full screen format.

Any help with MakeMKV settings will be appreciated. I have a fully licensed version.

[ndjamena]

It sounds like the movie on your DVD IS 4:3 full screen for all intents and purposes, it's just some of the screen area is occupied by black bars. MakeMKV can do nothing about that, as that's what is on the disc. If you want to get rid of the black bars you'll either have to use your TVs settings to zoom in on the picture, try to add Matroska crop entries to the file and hope your player obeys them or re-encode them.

[OldTimerToo]

Yes, that is basically the problem. The actual screen ratio is 4:3 with black bars at the top and bottom. Modern widescreen DVDs enhanced for widescreen (HD) televisions uses the widescreen tv ratio of 16:9. I've installed the toolkit and will look at what I can do with it.

[Chetwood]

Have you tried setting your WDTV from "wide" to "normal" when playing back 4:3 DVDs?

[OldTimerToo]

The problem shows up on all devices, including my PC (Windows Media Player), as well as the WD TV Live device. I don't want to have to change aspect ratios when moving between movies and/or TV shows. I can put up with the 4:3 playback for older television shows and movies with the side black bands, and the upper and lower bands on CinemaScope and other wider movie formats, but I want to leave all video settings on the device the same.

This is mostly for my wife, who simply refuses to learn how to do more that move through the folders and select a film or show to play.

I'll do some testing and see what happens, but my experience is that the "Normal" settings on the device stretches the picture and unless the image in the 4:3 screen is compressed (ID4 does this), the picture is less than ideal. I'm going to need to do some more checking to see what the setting does to 4:3 images on my HD television. While I have used the "zoom" feature, that is less than idea, since the zoom extends the letter-boxed picture beyond the edges of the TV screen. That can work, but not if I want to display captions.

[OldTimerToo]

After "playing" with the Independence Day DVD to get it to display correctly, I believe that I can manipulate the settings in the MKV file (through the toolbox) to display properly through the WDTV Live device, which I use. I will be testing The Abyss, which is available on DVD only in Letterboxed format. I will post the results here so if others are interested, they will know what they need to do.

I am including Handbrake in the discussion because it will set up a letterboxed DVD correctly for its MP4 format. Before it starts the recoding process (which can take a very long time), it displays the aspect ratio and provides the about of pixel to trim on each side (top and bottom included). This should be something that can be added through the toolbox edit process. Handbrake is available as free software. Likewise, the toolbox is also free (as MKVTollNix).

[Cor3000000323]

After "playing" with the Independence Day DVD to get it to display correctly, I believe that I can manipulate the settings in the MKV file (through the toolbox) to display properly through the WDTV Live device, which I use. I will be testing The Abyss, which is available on DVD only in Letterboxed format. I will post the results here so if others are interested, they will know what they need to do.

I am including Handbrake in the discussion because it will set up a letterboxed DVD correctly for its MP4 format. Before it starts the recoding process (which can take a very long time), it displays the aspect ratio and provides the about of pixel to trim on each side (top and bottom included). This should be something that can be added through the toolbox edit process. Handbrake is available as free software. Likewise, the toolbox is also free (as MKVTollNix).

10 years later, does anyone know if there's a way to "fix" those 4:3 letterboxed dvds (meaning black bars on all sides) without re-encoding? Some setting in mkvtoolnix?

I have a variety of dvds which the resulting mkv file is 4:3. Some have a squashed image, but which can be fixed with mkvtoolnix by changing aspect ratio to 16:9. Others have a 4:3 image which is not squashed, there are simply parts of the image missing (left and right), so nothing that can be done here. And the others I've come across are the subject here, 4:3 letterboxed, so there are black bars on all sides.

[Sunoo]

The MKV format has settings to set a crop on the video track which can be changed with mkvtoolnix. However, in my experience most players either ignore them or handle them in very wrong or confusing ways. If it worked, it would be perfect for that, but I just end up re-encoding.

[Cor3000000323]

The MKV format has settings to set a crop on the video track which can be changed with mkvtoolnix. However, in my experience most players either ignore them or handle them in very wrong or confusing ways. If it worked, it would be perfect for that, but I just end up re-encoding.

Thank you! You made me look it up. I tried it but as you say, the player doesn't respect it, so doesn't work for my case either. Re-encoding it is then.

[Sunoo]

I check it periodically with the hopes that one day it will become more supported (in my case, particularly by Plex), but it doesn’t seem like there is much interest from anyone who would the ability to implement it.