Windows DVD Maker Aspect Ratio problems

PROBLEM NOT RESOLVED

Hi kisbeSL.  Thank you for your reply although I'm sorry to report that this solution didn't work for me.  I think I first noticed the problem after my computer was restored by Dell after the Windows 7 system developed a separate fault.  I've never installed any of the other Microsoft Essentials.  I did try rolling back my current Movie Maker to v2.6 like you said kisbeSL and then tried burning a DVD in DVD Maker but the same problem was duplicated I'm afraid.  I really don't think that rolling back one program can fix another.  I started out yesterday with ten new blank DVDs and that's six failed attempts I've made now to resolve the matter.  What really gets my back up is that nobody from Microsoft is dealing with this!  The DVD Maker is a pretty integral part of the Win 7 Multimedia experience and is simply bugged and unusable and this fault has been around for 3 long years without any peep from Microsoft offering a solution.  Judging by this thread, Gokul's assertion that converting the movie to WMV format in Movie Maker "has helped a lot of users in fixing the 16:9 aspect ratio issues" sounds baseless so my advice to anyone else suffering this problem is: don't go wasting your valuable time and disks trying any of the above 'fixes'.  I'm afraid you will need to accept that Windows DVD Maker simply doesn't work and move on.  Face the fact that Windows are ignoring the problem (they haven't visited this thread for 3 years), look for a third party app for creating DVDs instead, and next time you are thinking of buying a computer, think seriously about whether you can risk the idea of having a Windows system that doesn't do what you originally bought it for in the first place

Sorry you were not successful. Maybe I missed an important step i.e you must first UN-INSTALL version 2012 of Movie Maker (MS Essentials). Otherwise the NEXT download will report that you have a later version and will not proceed.

There is also one important step you may have missed, you certainly don't mention it. AFTER ROLLING BACK TO V2.6  you must then install Microsoft essentials v2011. (note v2012 caused my problem). The reason for the two step instal (v2.6 and then 2011) was  a gamble to somehow ensure that certain driver files DLL, etc were restored to BEFORE v 2012 sat on my machine.

Personally I'm convinced the problem lies with the latest version of MM which updates (corrupts) a vital video driver. Another tip to save disks test only a short DVD say no more than 5 mins. Yes I have spent some time getting it right but I have not wasted any disks.

I certainly agree with your sentiments about MS - they should have recognised this problem and FIXED IT.

I have the same issue, except the symptom is the opposite - I am trying to burn a DVD in which the video aspect ratio is 4:3 (and I have WMM set to 4:3), but when I select "burn DVD" it states widescreen, and the resulting wmv file is changed to widescreen.  I cannot figure out how to set the burn aspect to 4:3.

It just seems to me that there is a bug in the protocol between the DVD burn utility and the file.  Occasionally I have seen an issue where the saved project gets into a mode in WMM where the 4:3 aspect is stretched to 16:9, and nothing seems to fix it except to abandon the project and start over (this is the only way I have found to fix that issue).  So this aspect ratio bug is not limited to dvd burn, but also appears in WMM.

Personally I would rather see a solution in the current or subsequent WMM and not have to revert to earlier versions to work around the problem.  Version 2.6 was designed originally for XP and made to work in Vista, and was never tested in W7 which I have.  Just saying I would rather not do that experiment, as it might corrupt some W7 files.  I am currently using version 2011 (Build 15.4.3555.0308).

Because MM and DVD-M both worked perfectly BEFORE I installed MS Essentials 2012, I felt the solution was to get back to square one. Thats why I totally uninstalled  both MSE 2012 and MM. Then I installed MM2.6 and then MSE2011 (which includes MM for Windows 7). So now I was back up and all now working. This gave me the conclusion that MSE 2012 was the culprit. However I should add that in using DVD Maker all video files were in WMV format - I haven't used AVI. A previous contributor did suggest that AVI should be converted to WMV first before running DVD Maker. I agree that MS should fix this problem. From this thread it is obvious that the problem has existed for long time now.

I like how Microsoft is just ignoring this page. Do they think its gonna get fixed on its own. I really feel like they don't even care about we want anymore. Time to switch...