[pawel]

Originally Posted by tgunn2760

So with the black bars, do I author as 4:3 or 16:9?

For the above example: 16:9. There are also 4:3 broadcasts with 'black bars'.

Authoring programs give you only following choices: 16:9 Letterboxed, Pan & Scan, and L + P&S; 4:3. For 16:9 it's better to choose always letterboxed, as P&S in most cases will look distorted on 4:3 TV. L+P&S option takes some space of a DVD, and If the end-user selects Pan&Scan as the viewing preference for his or her DVD player and the content is not Pan&Scan vector encoded, then only the upper-left area of the video image will be seen during playback. In other words, only choose the 16:9 LB/P&S option if the content is pan-scan vector-encoded..

You may check aspect ratio of the source video file by GSpot. However, the flag may not always be correctly set - then use your eyes

Aspect ratio of a DVD or .mpg file may be quickly corrected in PgcEdit, DVDPatcher, and by a few other free tools. For a DVD the flag is written in *.ifo/bup files hence video (*.vobs) is untouched.