Philips DVDR 75 aspect ratio issue

[jongear]

I'm generally happy with my DVD recorder - especially good for backing up old VHS (much better than USB capture) - however it only seems to encode recordings as 4:3 ratio. This problem only seems to happen when recording satellite 16:9 through scart - even then the recordings are fine on players where one can manually set aspect ratio. But on some player/television set-ups the widescreen image is squeezed into 4:3 (indeed the .ifo files confirm that they are 4:3). I have 3 work-arounds - but none perfect:

1) Recoding DVD (looses some quality and legnthy process)
2) Change satellite output to 4:3 letterbox (pixels wasted in black bands, and not ideal for widescreen television)
3)Using IfoEdit to change .ifo files to 16:9 from 4:3 (still displays as 4:3 on some systems e.g. DVDShrink still sees them as 4:3)

Is there some better setting for DVD recorder or satellite that would resolve this? Or a more bullet proof way of changing .ifos so all players recognize new aspect ratio?

[setarip]

This link appears to indicate that your box should automatically identify 16:9 (See the section captioned "Installation/Reception"):

http://www.codefreedvd.com/dvd_philipsdvdr75.htm

[jongear]

Player certainly recognizes screen ratio when playing discs, and the manual (and site) only mentions output screen selection type (during set up). But not recording - I've searched Philips site, but found no help, so I have contacted their help desk. It could be a satellite issue - but I doubt it, as the scart output will automatically change aspect ratio when outputting to television.

[jongear]

It is a satellite issue!

Last night I had a timed recording from satellite - on playback I amazed to see aspect ratio correctly adjusting back and forth (during advert breaks). So it seems to only work (from satellite) when programs are pre-programed to autoplay. So the problem is not with recorder, but scart output.

The draw back is that one cannot just start recording on the spare of the moment - and also, some channels (e.g. BBC3) do not consistently send out aspect ratio info - or I should say, that timed auto-play recordings from BBC3 have had the 4:3, where they should have been 16:9. So it looks like I will still have to edit .ifos (unless anyone has better solution).

But thanks for help.