iDVD 3 does not produce PAL widescreen (16:9) movies by default, but can be tricked into doing so...
If you have a camcorder that can shoot anamorphic DV (e.g. Sony DCR-TVR60e PAL), you will need Final Cut Express rather than iMovie to edit the footage.
- Once editing is complete, save the movie in Final Cut Express format including any markers (e.g. Chapter markers), but uncheck the box that makes the file self-contained.
- Open iDVD and create your project file; when the status indicator shows that encoding is complete, save the project file and quit iDVD.
- Right-click on the DVD project file and select Show Package Contents.
- Navigate throught the folders Contents and Resources to locate the MPEG folder.
- Option-drag the MPEG folder to another location (e.g. your Desktop) to make a copy.
- Download HexEdit and use it to open in turn each file within the copied MPEG folder.
- Use HexEdit's Find and Replace option to find every instance of "2D 02 40 23" (describing 720 x 576 PAL in 4:3 ratio at 25 fps) and replace it with "2D 02 40 33" (describing 720 x 404 PAL in 16:9 ratio at 25 fps), saving each file. For more information about the changing the MPEG header, click here.
- Delete the original (4:3) MPEG files from within the Package, and replace them with the new (16:9) files you have just saved.
- You can view the effect this change has by opening each file in QuickTime if you have purchased the QuickTime 6 MPEG-2 Playback component (you might need to give the file an ".mpg" extension to get QuickTime to recognize it). Alternatively, use VLC: neither will playback sound.
- Close the Package and burn your DVD.
Note that the menus created by iDVD will still appear in 4:3 format.
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I've written a perl script which is wrapped in a little Mac OS X app called Drop16x9 to automate this process so you don't have to fiddle about it in HexEdit, you just drop the encoded iDVD project onto it. Also I've found that I can shoot in 16:9 with my Canon MVX1i and edit the resulting video in iMovie fine.
In the process of trying your app Matthew something funny happened. Since the last time I made a widescreen DVD I've upgraded to Panther, reinstalled Final Cut Express, and updated to QuickTime 6.5 Pro + the new version of the MPEG2 Component. When I hooked up my camcorder and imported widescreen footage, it showed under Properties: Pixel Aspect Ratio "PAL - CCIR 601", above a checked box "Anamorphic 16:9". When I dragged this clip into the timeline and exported it as a FCE movie and opened it in QuickTime Player, it appeared to be letter-boxed. A test DVD-RW created from this movie played letterboxed on the Mac and PC (inside a 4:3 window), and auto-expanded to widescreen on my 16:9 telly without further modification. When I tried to repeat the process (re-capturing the same footage), FCE exported anamorphic footage again! Any ideas what happened?
A point of clarification: you can edit 16:9 footage using iMovie if all you're doing is trimming and re-arranging clips. Problems may arise when you try to add titles, effects etc which are 4:3 and overlay these on anamorphic footage. If you then burn your movie using iDVD the disc will play back as a "squashed" picture; if you were to edit the MPEG headers to make a widescreen version, the titles etc will appear stretched. Choosing your fonts carefully make overcome this.
Bruce, I can't really suggest anything, I've never used Final Cut Express. I didn't realise it even supported 16:9 footage natively. In regards to 16:9 support in iMovie, that's exactly what I do, you do need to be careful in your font choices for titles etc.
very very helpful site. it finally answered the question i've been crawling around the net asking. thanks.