Hi everyone
To answer your question DDYY, my video camera is a Sony DCR-DVD803E. It is a digital video camera recording directly onto mini DVDs.
The aspect ration problem I had was caused by two things.
1 - The viewer had top and bottom borders that would alternately appear and disappear each time I opened up the preview player. This was caused by codec problems in my computer. I have now corrected that by installing standard codec’s, instead of a universal codec list that I had to overcome some streaming video problems - there was no sound. Now that is OK as well.
2 - The problem of PDR6 not recognizing the 16:9 aspect ratio correctly, was because I was importing my video clips using a program that came with my camera called Sony Picture Package. The thing that really confused me was that PDR6 was importing the clips into the library as 16:9 sometimes, but most of the time it was importing then as 4:3, when the clips were recorded in the camera as 16:9, play on the TV from the camera as 16:9, and also import into the computer through the Picture Package program as 16:9.
After many hours of testing, and working with a very helpful cyberlink person, over a week, I found that the real cause was that the format of the DVDs from my video camera had changed. I had decided to change the formatting of the DVDs in my video camera from video to VR mode. VR format allows me to delete and/or edit old clips in the camera, video format only allows me to delete the last clip taken, and I can’t edit, so to me VR is preferred.
The clips that PDR6 recognized as 16:9, had been imported from my camera, through Picture Package, from the camera DVD formatted in video format. The clips that PDR6 incorrectly recognized as 4:3, had come off the camera disks that were formatted in VR format.
A work around for this is to import all the clips I want to use into the PDR6 library box. They are recognized as 4:3, so drag them all into the timeline and set the aspect ration of one of them to 16:9, but tick the box that says to apply to all video clips. They will now be recognized as 16:9 from now on, even if removed from the time line, and the library box. If they are kept in the library box, the thumbnails still show as 4:3, but when dragged into the time line, they will be 16:9. If PDR6 is closed and reopened, the thumbnails will now show as 16:9.
If I use the capture mode in PDR6, from the camera DVDs in my DVD drive in the computer, all the clips are now recognized as 16:9, no matter which format is used on the video camera DVD. The capture does not work with my camera connected using USB, so I have to put the DVDs in the DVD drive in the computer.
Hope this helps anyone having the same issue, as it is very frustrating not knowing what causes these things at times.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at May 22. 2007 00:57