Windows DVD Maker

I customize my menus do everything just fine, burn it and then it looks like a box.  The video that I Have is widescreen and when i burn it it looks like a box.  I set the options to 16:9 and still no love.  PLEASE HELP

Hey,

Have the exact same problem. Even if you preview the file it looks widescreen. Don't know anyway around this. You'd think with the amount of complaints that MS would do something about this.

Next gen OS my ASS!!!

I am having the same freaking problem...

Absolutely DITTO! Same problem, and I've had no love from the windowshelp forums over at microsoft... my post there was:

==========
I have a collection of clips which I'm trying to burn onto a dvd. They are
640x352, so not fully 16:9, but certainly not 4:3.

I selected 16:9 in the properties of my DVD maker project, I used the
preview, and it's all hunky dory and the videos play full screen in the
widescreen preview... but come to burning it to a DVD and I'm left with a
perfectly done 16:9 menu (very nice btw) but then videos that are squished
into a 4:3 frame (stretched vertically) and then plonked into a 16:9 video...

So on my 16:9 tv I'm left with black bars on the left and right of a
vertically stretched image that should have been filling the screen.

Very unhappy... a wasted disc and wasted hours.
=========

It's really sad, because other than this one, somewhat MAJOR bug the app is really nice and I'll happily use it over the Nero Vision Express I used to use, but if it can't output the ratio it says it's going to output, it's not much use!

I don't have a solution either, just adding my dissapointment to the thread.  I of course have been having the same problems.  New development yesterday, though - I got 2 black bars on the edge of the screen, but on the left and right side, not the top and bottom, so now the screen is even more compressed and stretched vertically.  It's almost painful to watch, because my eyes strain so hard to focus on it.  Is there any sort of complaint system for the Vista programmers, because this really is serious enough for me to unload Vista and revert back to XP and run Nero more efficiently.

Yeah, left and right black bars is what I get in my example, very annoying.

I wanted to ask for actual tech support for this from Microsoft so went into the email support thing and put in my product key and the stupid thing has told me it's not a valid product key... which is kinda odd as I have a boxed version of OEM Vista, and it's validated no problem and stays up to date.

So not happy on that front either. Haven't had a chance to call them on that front.

*sigh*... it's so close to being a great app!

Not much advice on this, I suffer the same Squashed fate with my 'axxo' DVD torrents - if you know what I mean?!?

The only thing I can think of is to change your file to a different format

i.e  AVI files to DVD with something like convertX to DVD

then try again with Windows DVD Maker

Let me know if this works has I haven't got ConvertX yet

Problem is that adds a whole 'nother step to the process, thereby making it far slower and less convenient. To make me want to use this over using even the less than perfect Roxio solution that came installed on my XP laptop, it has to natively take pretty much any avi and burn it correctly to DVD. Roxio can do it, Nero can do it... plenty of other packages can do it, but I really did want to use the in built Vista solution... as not only did it mean not paying for more software, but it really does make pretty menus.

:/ Signed up just to ask if anyone knew how to fix it and its sad that there is no solution. I also try to make my DVDs from axxo torrents and it shows up as a box because DVD maker does not stretch to fit like roxio. But im having problems with roxio that wont let me select Avi files so im screwed both ways.

I have the same problem. What is weird is that the dvd menu fits the screen fine and its not until I hit play that the black bars show up on all 4 sides.

Jewelz3jd:

I customize my menus do everything just fine, burn it and then it looks like a box.  The video that I Have is widescreen and when i burn it it looks like a box.  I set the options to 16:9 and still no love.  PLEASE HELP

 

Please set WMM>Extra>Options>Advanced the ratio to 16:9 before publishing! That should do the trick...

Jewelz3jd:

I customize my menus do everything just fine, burn it and then it looks like a box.  The video that I Have is widescreen and when i burn it it looks like a box.  I set the options to 16:9 and still no love.  PLEASE HELP

 

Please set WMM>Extra>Options>Advanced the ratio to 16:9 before publishing! That should do the trick...

Please set WMM>Extra>Options>Advanced the ratio to 16:9 before publishing! That should do the trick...

But the issue is when we AREN'T using Windows Movie Maker first. We have one or more clips that we just want to be able to quickly make a DVD out of, having to go through Windows Movie Maker first and render it there before then putting it into... oooh, hang on I've just been looking online (I'm at work and using XP here so I can't test.)... but is the case that you can publish straight to the DVD without an intermediate render step... hmmm... this might have some promise.

I shall have to look into it...

It doesn't change the fact that the whole app shows EVERYTHING working fine and then it burns and does it all wrong, THAT is a major bug that wastes dics.

Hi, it has taken me about 4 hours and three DVD discs but i think i have solved this as i was having problems when burning with windows DVD maker the picture was looking thin and stretched.

first thing i dont was to download WinAvi and i used this to convert the film file to DVD format (which was a folder with folders inside, one named Video_TS and one named Audio_TS, which are what real DVD's have on them.).

i then used a program called imgburn to burn these two folders to my DVD disc i set it to auto adjustment for the screen size and i just selected the format (PAL) and dvd quality (highest).

the whole process took around half hour which was much faster than windows dvd maker, and when i played it the picture was fine, the audio was out of sync the first time though and this was to do with the converting, so i just upped the quality to highest and this seems to have solved it.

can i just add im not trying to get you to use these programs or anything, you might have to buy a subscription or something i dunno, i downloaded it from a different kind of site.

there might be versions of software that do the same thing for free, but these are the two i used and they worked great.

 

hope this helps, the stretched picture has been bothering me for literally months, every single DVD i burned.

 

This post by Dazmack doesn't make much sense to me if we are talking about black bars on the sides of burned dvds in DVD Maker.