I am having problems creating a DVD via my PC from a programme that was broadcast on BBC4 this year. The programme was originally broadcast in 1982 and was filmed in 4:3 format. When played on my 15 year old Philips 4:3 CRT TV via a Scart cable from the Humax 9200T it displays in full screen. If I create a DVD by linking the Humax VCR Scart socket to EXT2 on a Philips DVDR880 DVD+RW recorder the program records correctly in 4:3 and plays back correctly in 4:3.

But I read that picture quality gets lost doing the above and more quality can be retained by using a PC to create a DVD. As it was originally old programme the quality isn’t 100% anyway and I wanted to ensure no more got lost than necessary when creating the DVD.

However, if I transfer the TS file from the Humax to PC and play the TS file in a Media Player it displays on my PC 4:3 DVI monitor as 4:3 centred in a 16:9 frame. If I use VideoRedo to look at the transmission details it shows as a 16:9 programme.
When I create a DVD+RW from the TS file using VideoRedo and play the DVD either in Windows Media Centre/Media Player or take the DVD and play it from the Philips DVDR880 DVD+RW recorder and display it on my 4:3 TV the result is the same. I get a small square picture encased in both vertical and horizontal thick black borders (4:3 centred in a 16:9 frame).

Having looked at various Web sites yesterday it seems the BBC always broadcast 4:3 programmes centred in a 16:9 frame whereas others such as ITV change to full frame 4:3 when a 4:3 programme is being broadcast. It looks like the BBC broadcast a special code called an “active format descriptor” (or AFD) code with the 4:3 programme that tells the digital device that although a 16:9 frame is being sent, the content is actually 4:3. The digital receiver (if intelligent enough) then recognises this AFD code and switches to a “centre cut-out” mode which expands the small picture up to fit the full screen.

So I think I understand why the TV/Humax combination displays the programme correctly if left on the Humax. When creating a DVD from Humax to Philips via Scart I’m guessing the Humax is outputting the programme as 4:3 so the DVD recorder is seeing it as a proper 4:3 programme and recording it as such.

But I am not clear how to proceed when editing with VideoRedo on the PC. So my questions are:

1. Am I right in assuming that the AFD code survives the edit and therefore ends up on the DVD and if I therefore had a modern digital TV the programme would be displayed correctly?
2. I realise that one option would be to manually resize the picture by trying to edit out the black parts and trying to expand the centre but assume I’ll lose picture quality by doing that. Is there a better way of producing a full size 4:3 DVD e.g. could VideoRedo recognise the AFD code and reformat the picture or is there something that could be edited in the picture metadata to do this?
3. Will the end result still end up producing a DVD of any better quality than the one created by Scart transfer?

Thanks for any advice/suggestions.

Are you sure there is a special flag to show that the BBC haven't bothered to broadcast 4:3 properly?

I would have thought that the Humax just detects all the black either side of the picture and says, "F*** this, the BBC have f***ed it up again, better snip the sides off."

The Humax is quite a clever box but it would have to have a list of "rogue" broadcasters embedded in it as I have found that some other brodcasters worldwide use the AFD code to "cheat" so they don't have to bother switching frame sizes to match the frame size of the programme being broadcast.

Someone on the VideoRedo forum who lives in Australia posted this solution as one of the broadcasters there does the same as the BBC:

"How to make 4:3, click Create DVD > Change Output Options > Video Cropping and Sizing > Pillar Box to Standard. You can save back to mpeg from save as afterward from VOB file....or go to build DVD"

Everything is fine on Windows Media Player on 2 different PCs when I do the above. I get fullscreen display with no black borders just how I wanted it.

But as soon as I try to play the DVD in my Philips DVDR880 DVD+RW recorder, I just get a message saying "Disc Error". The Philips DVDR880 manual says the message means an error was encountered creating a title which implies this is when creating a DVD+RW on the DVDR880 itself.

I tried burning to another DVD+RW disc (a brand new Philips DVD+RW disc) but still get the same. It all worked fine before I set "Pillarbox to Standard" except the picture was so small. All media used is Philips DVD+RW discs certified as 4X speed. I tried burning with speed set to Automatic initially then tried 4X but it makes no difference.

I wondered if it was the menu I created so I recreated the DVD with "No menu" but I still get the same.

Video bitrate shows as 9.244Mbps MPEG-2 PS, Aspect ratio is 4:3. Audio shows as MPA/2ch/English Layer 2 48000Khz 256.

If I load an HQ DVD+RW disc created on the Philips DVDR880 into VideoRedo, the video bit rate shows as 8.900Mbps MPEG-2 PS. Aspect ratio is 4:3. Audio shows as AC:3 2.0 48000Khz 256

Has anyone else encountered a similar problem?

just guessing as I haven't tried this, but I suspect that the problem is that when you convert letterbox to standard, if there is no rendering / re-encoding done, then you have ended up with a non dvd-compliant resolution, which some hardware players will baulk at

If it really is a 4:3 in a 16:9 frame with black bars the only is answer is to crop and VideReDo TV Suite will do exactly that. It allows various cropping options. A nice one fixes the AR making it easy to muck about e.g. I was bought "Casino Royale" for Christmas and it annoyed me in its true AR with black bars at the top and bottom so I used VRD to chop a bit off each side, still keeping the AR and the titles JUST fitting on screen. It made it much more watchable on a WSTV.

I have since discovered that the "Disc Error" problem I mentioned earlier is not related to conversion of aspect ratio.

If I take any TS file from the Humax and burn a DVD with VideoRedo TVSuite then the DVD plays okay in Windows Media Player but gets a Disc Error on the Philips DVDR880.

But if I take a DVD that was authored on the DVDR880, edit it in VideoRedo, and create a DVD in VideoRedo, that DVD will then play on the Philips DVDR880.

I then had another idea. I have a CD with Roxio Easy Media Creator 9. I don't normally have it installed because I don't like the software, it has various bugs, and all their support staff could do was tell me to uninstall/reinstall the software each time there was a problem (and needless to say it never solved the problem). But I thought as a last resort I'd try using one of the applications bundled with the software called MyDVD 9, which can simply take a file in, add a DVD menu, and create a DVD.

So I ran the file from the Humax through it using all the defaults and created a DVD. Result: It plays in the Philips DVDR880.

I then loaded the DVD into VideoRedo to check the statistics and it shows MPEG for audio and video. The audio stats look the same to me, the video stats show a bit rate of 9.0 Mbps on the Roxio authored DVD whereas the bit rate is about 9.5 Mbps on the failing VideoRedo authored DVD. But I don't think video bit rate is the problem because on a previous test I reduced the bit rate down to 5 Mbps on the VideoRedo authored DVD and it still got the Disc Error.

So it does seem that VideoRedo is doing something different in creating the DVD with the Humax TS file as input as opposed to Roxio MyDVD 9 and that subtle difference is causing the problem.

So its back to the VideoRedo guys now and see if they have any suggestions.

Google for a program called DVD Patcher. It lets you alter the quoted bit rate for any mpg file. Usually patching just the first header is sufficient to get past the DVD player check and it will then have no problem playing the DVD.

The way the BBC is doing it is the proper way!

This subject has been discussed many times over the years and has always generated some dissent but technically they are right. The 4:3 pictures have to make their way around the 16:9 edit and broadcasts suites and various paths in between. Constantly squashing and stretching the picture would be a disaster so it stays 4:3 in a 16:9 frame all the way to the playout system. This will presumably be true of most broadcasters.

It is at this point that the policy differs. The BBC choose to leave the picture as is and flag it appropriately (yes, AFDs do exist and are used correctly by most decent STBs). Other broadcasters choose to stretch the image to fill a 4:3 frame.

When the picture arrives at a STB the stretched image of most broadcasters needs to be squashed again for 16:9 viewers thus introducing more artefacts. With 4:3 sets they just show the image as stretched by the broadcaster (less artifacts but still some).

The BBC images on the other hand are streamed with no stretching or squashing to 16:9 sets. 4:3 sets get to just show a stretched version of the centre cut (assuming the AFD is working) so only minimal processing (no worse than for the other method).

In these days of digital displays scaling artefacts are again introduced in the display so the fewer that can be introduced in the broadcast chain the better.

Ever wondered why the BBC pictures tend to look better on most systems? Yes, better bitrates help but it's not the whole story.

Several months ago I recorded on my Hummy a broadcast of the film "Night of the Demon", shown on BBC3 or BBC4. However, I was disappointed when I came to watch it.

"Night of the Demon" is a 1957 black & white film staring Dana Andrews, and I would be surprised if it were anything other than 4/3 (or thereabouts). And indeed that was what appeared on my widescreen LCD TV. The problem was that the left and right sides of the titles were clipped off, and the male cast all had impossibly broad shoulders!

My surmise is that the film started off as a 4/3 print, which then got stretched to 16/9, but was subsequently clipped to 4/3. I chose not to watch it and deleted the recording (it will be on again...).

-- from Cybersimian in the UK

Thanks for that tip.

However, yesterday I've just retried creating DVDs using VideoRedo using the same steps as when I was getiing the failures and they are all playing properly in the Philips DVDR880. Whatever I did before, I couldn't get it to work. Now whatever I do, I can't get it to fail.

I guess the Philips DVDR880 must have had a temporary fault which eventually cleared.

Thanks to everyone who helped me on this thread.