Making a DVD that will play both 16x9 and 4x3

I have an HD 30 minute piece (ProRes 1280 x 720, 23.98) that needs to be exported so I can create a DVD that will play both 16x9 and 4x3 Letterboxed depending on the viewers setup... it's going to multiple viewers. I have DVD Studio Pro set up for that but I'm guessing the export needs to be anamorphic for it to work correctly. How do I do that?

You first need to take it into Compressor and use the "DVD: Best Quality 90 minutes" setting. Make sure the "Stream Usage" is set to "SC DVD". And keep the aspect ratio to 16:9. After that bring in the file into DVD SP. You'll need to go threw your Prefs and make sure you have it set "SD DVD", and 16:9 Letterbox in the display mode. It should play on a 4:3 TV showing the letterbox, and on a HDTV... it depends what kind of DVD player you are playing it on. If you are using a DVD player that does not res-up, it will show in 4:3 with all four side blocked out, but you will see the whole image. The rest on how to use DVD SP is up to what your level is to burn a DVD.

Depending on your needs, DVDSP may be overkill.
I just built four of them , each an hour and half. They work just peachy in iDVD 7.0.4.

Here are the steps I recently took to get 720p24 to a DVD disc using iDVD 7 and up:

1) Choose a 16 X 9 Theme in iDVD.
2) Export your HD 720p sequence as QuickTime Movie (NOT "Using Conversion" ), Chapter Markers checked, Make Movie Self-Contained checked.
3) Drag your export file icon to iDVD's site map window.
4) Say Yes to import Chapter Markers and it creates a second menuscreen linked to the first.
5) Tweak menus, rename buttons, and position them to your liking.
6) Test the behaviors.
7) Click the Burn iris in the lower right corner.
8) Feed in a fresh Verbatim DVD-R disc and go to lunch.

You may be alerted to an oversize file, and to change your Quality settings in iDVD Preferences if you load in over 90 minutes.
That setting should be changed to Professional Quality.

It automatically plays in 16 X 9 letterbox on old school tubes.
On the computer, it plays widescreen.

- Loren

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