Apple DVD Studio Pro 4 - Manual (Page 60)

Using 16:9 Assets in Menus
Typically you’ll want to use 16:9 menus with 16:9 tracks. Most of the same concerns with
video apply to menus as well—specifically how the 16:9 menu is displayed on a 4:3
monitor.
With a 16:9 menu, you specify how it will play back on a 4:3 monitor: Pan-Scan, Letterbox,
or Pan Scan & Letterbox (allowing the viewer to choose). As mentioned previously,
pan-scan is rarely used, and should never be selected unless the encoded video contains
pan-scan vector information.
See Understanding Pixel Differences in Graphics and Video for information on the image
size settings you should use when creating 16:9 menus.
Issues with Film Aspect Ratios
While 16:9 is a fairly wide aspect ratio, it is not wide enough to contain an entire frame
from a typical Hollywood movie. Two film aspect ratios are widely used now: Normal is
1.85:1 and Widescreen is 2.40:1 (for comparison, 16:9 is 1.78:1). For normal titles (those
that use the 1.85:1 aspect ratio), a small amount of letterboxing or pan-scan cropping is
required to transfer the title to DVD, but for Panavision titles significant letterboxing or
pan-scan cropping is necessary. This processing must be done before the video is
MPEG-encoded. The DVD specification supports only 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratios.
2.40:1 (Widescreen)
1.85:1 (Normal film)
1.78:1 (16:9)
1.33:1 (4:3)
You should not be surprised to see some letterboxing when playing a Panavision movie
on a 16:9 monitor.
About MPEG Video
MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group) is a family of video and audio compression formats
that make high-quality titles possible on DVD. There are a broad range of MPEG types
and settings; use care to select those that are DVD-compliant with the DVD standard (SD
or HD) you are using. DVD Studio Pro imports MPEG assets created with a wide variety
of third-party products. The following section,
Encoding Video Materials for DVD , provides
a general overview of MPEG, as well as details that relate specifically to DVD Studio Pro
and its integrated MPEG encoder.
60 Chapter 4 Preparing Video Assets