On Mon, 31 Jan 2005 11:53:06 GMT, "Camper" <greentoow@yahoo.com.au>
wrote:

Can you do me a favour please.

Download Ifo-Edit from the Doom9.org site.
Do a recording in wide screen on your TV setup.
Load up Ifo-Edit. Bottom left hand of screen is a Open icon. Click on
that and then place the DVD-R disc into your PC DVD-ROM/Burner drive.
Click on the files in the window and it will show you if it has
recorded in wide screen (16:9) or NORM (4:3) mode.

I own a E30 model but do not have a wide screen TV set.
A friend of mine has a wide screen TV set and is looking at buying
the E85 recorder. He would like to record in wide screen so it can be
played back on mates DVD players that have wide screen TV sets.

On various forum sites no one seems to know if it can record in wide
screen as not to many own a wide screen TV set.

I know with my E30 recorder I can set the TV aspect ratio for wide
screen but this has nothing to do with the recording in wide screen.
The DVD Video option for DVD-R only has 4:3 in Norm or Letterbox
as does the DVD-RAM option. I have tried it in letterbox and it still
only records at 4:3

I have a Digital decoder box and set that to wide screen and although
it looks like I have recorded in wide screen, Ifo-Edit shows it as a
4:3 NORM.

The JVC units advertise wide screen recording but no other recorders
mention wide screen recorders but as quite a few Panasonic recorders
are been sold with wide screen tV sets I thought I'd ask if the latest
Panasonic E85 recorders do record in wide screen.

Thanks for all those who have replied so far.

On Mon, 31 Jan 2005 17:59:41 GMT, Colin@nospam.com (Colin) wrote:

If you set it to 4:3, that normally tells the player to convert a
DVD-title that is flagged as 16:9 format to a 4:3 signal with the
content in letterbox.

Where do you get the widescreen signal from?
Is it from a digital TV-receiver, or are you in an area where you can
receive a PAL+ signal?

If he records a video signal from an external source, like a digital
TV-receiver, the recorder records the video signal in the same way
whatever aspect ratio the recorder thinks the signal should be
displayed at. I don't believe that the recorder converts a 16:9 signal
to 4:3 with the content in letterbox. It is "only" the information
flag that tells the difference.

So the difference comes at playback of the disc.
If the wrong aspect information is stored on the disc, and recorders
in general seems to set the flag fixed as 4:3, it can still be solved
by setting the TV set manually to display at 16:9 aspect ratio.

I don't think this should be a problem for any 16:9 TV.

The problem is the opposite, if you play that disc on an old 4:3 TV
which can not be set to display in 16:9 aspect ratio.
It is not normal to be able to override the information on the disc to
force the DVD-player to do the conversion, which it normally do when
the flag is set correctly. You then get distorted geometry when the
4:3 screen is filled.

The flag on the DVD disc can be set to 16:9 (Title by Title) by
IFO-Edit if you re-writing the DVD from a PC using for example
DVD-Shrink.


This is normal.

If you want to display these recordings on an old 4:3 TV without
re-writing on a PC, you should let the Digital TV-box do the
conversion to 4:3 Letterbox (which they normally can).
You record that signal (which is a 4:3 signal) and it will display
correctly on your 4:3 TV.

I wonder what they mean. A Philips +R/+RW recorder (DVDR-70 and
similar) records the 16:9 signal status all the time in the SCART-in
connector. But as the functionallity to follow the changes in this
signal is not possible in the DVD-Video standard, the repoduction of
this signal in the SCART-out connector only works when the disc is
played back on such a recorder. But for playback on the recorder it
works fine.
/Jan