Apple's DVD Player won't change the aspect ratio for anamorphic video, but the VLC media player can...
So you've recorded anamorphic video to DVD but when you watch it on your Mac it plays back looking horizontally squashed? This will occur, for example, when using a Philips DVD Recorder to save a widescreen movie on Freeview, the UK's digital terrestrial television (DVB-T) service. The VLC media player can be manually adjusted to play back your movie using the correct aspect ratio.
- From the VCL menu select Preferences then check the Advanced box.
- Select Video in the left pane and scroll down to Source Aspect Ratio and type in 16:9
- Click Save.
- Quit VLC and then launch it again in order to play the VOB file or DVD.
This is an anamorphic picture:
Changing the aspect ratio to 16:9 will allow widescreen viewing:
Update 26.03.06: You can also use Apple's DVD Player (OS X Tiger plus) to view anamorphic video. Details here.
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Thanks for this. I thought it must be really simple but have been struggling for ages to find a way to play widescreen DVD+R disks in the proper aspect ratio on Macs. Trouble is VLC seems rather unstable - if only Apple would add the ability to play movies in 16:9 or 4:3 to DVD Player...
Slightly off-topic I'm afraid, but you seem to know what you're talking about... I recorded TV using our Panasonic DVD recorder in LP mode (don't know the compression) onto a DVD-R. I tried playing it back on a friend's new Intel Mac using DVD Player - it showed the menu screen the first time only to fail playback, and now it won't even show the menu screen, saying the disk cannot be read. The disk is not damaged, in Finder the VOBs are clearly on the disk, and plays back fine on PCs and our DVD player. Any idea's what's going on? Are these recordings blocked out for some reason?
Thanks,
Michael.
Michael, there shouldn't be any problem caused by the MPEG-2 encoding of the .vob files you recorded off TV. I've been able to playback these on my (Intel) Mac mini when recorded to both DVD-R and DVD R; your friends mini should thus have no problem with the media or the video. My experience is, however, that Apple's DVD Player is a bit fussy about menu structures. For example, one of my DVDs plays fine on the PC, but DVD Player doesn't recognize it at all until I click "Play" (no menu appears). I suspect DVD Player is the problem, and suggest you ask your friend to download VLC as this app seems more tolerant of disks produced on a variety of devices.