[NTLUG:Discuss] Video question

[Stuart Johnston]

Fred wrote:
> Not sure who to ask about this, so here goes:
> 
> I have an avi file that I want to burn to a dvd. I used ffmpeg to 
> make it into an mpg file, then dvdauthor to make it ready to burn.
> 
> Somewhere along the line the aspect ratio got hosed. Nowhere 
> can I find any way to letterbox the original's really widescreen 2.35 
> aspect ratio to a standard ntsc 4:3. I know it can be done because 
> I seem to remember letterboxing a 16:9 video once. 
> 
> Should I have used mencoder instead of ffmpeg?

I don't have an answer to your specific widescreen question but I 
recently spent a weekend experimenting with different dvd creation 
programs on Linux and had the best results with Tovid:

http://tovid.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

ManDVD also seemed nice if you like flashy GUIs:

http://freshmeat.net/projects/mandvd/