[Frameworks] burning DVDs with different aspect ratios

[David Tetzlaff]

There are three variables here:

how the DVD is authored
how the DVD player handles different SD aspect ratios
how the display device handles different SD aspect ratios

In other words, no matter how you author the DVD, you may still have 'issues', depending on the playback components.

As Buck noted, a DVD disk itself can easily have for 4;3 and 16:9 anamorphic, as long as the two are confined to separate title-sets or tracks. But your projection setup may be able to handle the switch from on to the other automatically, or maybe not. (In fact, your disc created with Encore may even be fine, if you have the right settings selected in the the setups menus for the DVD player, and the display. it also sometimes matters whether the DVD player is connected to the display via analog cables (Component, S-Video) or digital (DVI, HDMI).

As Jason suggests, you can make a DVD that will play back without having to switch aspect ratios regardless of other factors by changing the aspect ratios of some of your material: either putting the whole thing in 16:9 (thus pillarboxing the 4:3 parts) or putting the whole thing in 4:3 (thus letterboxing the 16:9 parts). Alas, either of these will only fill the usable part of the screen if they match the native aspect-ratio of the display.

(Video projectors out-in-the-world these days are pretty much evenly split between 16:9 and 4:3...)

So, there's no one-disk-fits-all answer. If you're making this DVD for a specific venue, find out what the native aspect ratio of the projector is, and use that as your base. If this is something you're traveling with to different venues, burn one each of the 3 types of DVDs described above: 
1 all in 16:9 with the 4:3 pillarboxed inside
1 all in 4:3 with the 16:9 letterboxed inside
1 with each piece in its own title/track linked with jumps 

Like Buck, I only know how to do this is DVDSP, but there has to be a way to do it in some windows software, probably Encore, and probably in Unix as well. I think DVDAuthor can do just about everything, but it's basically an intimidating command-line app, and the various GUI front-ends all have limits.

Then, whatever type of projection setup you encounter, you'll have an optimum DVD for it. (A system that adjusts the aspect ration on the fly from a DVD with mixed title-sets is ideal, because then you are always using the full resolution of the 720x480 raster. With any pillarboxing or letter boxing, you're effectively dropping the amount of information in the image.)

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If you're brave enough to run ubuntu on PC hardware, you should see if your hardware can run any version of OSx86 (Hackintosh). It wouldn't have to be the latest and greatest, any version of 10.5 or 10.6 would let you run some version of FCP and DVDSP, thus getting you out of Adobeland. You'd install the Mac OS on a separate hard drive (USB externals work if you have a laptop) and then boot into the BIOS to switch boot drives to switch from one OS to another. 
http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
http://www.tonymacx86.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/
http://www.osx86.net/