How to convert a 2:21:1 video to 16:9 DVD using ffmpeg?
Having seen the sample, this is the command

ffmpeg -i in.avi -vf pad=720:576:0:144,setdar=4/3 -target pal-dvd out.mpg


The video is square-pixel, so scaling is not required. The frame should be treated as 4:3, not 16:9 (which isn't the right ratio for this movie anyway).



For widescreen playback in the PAL standard, your rendered raster has to be 1024x576. So,

ffmpeg -i in.avi -vf scale=1024:288,pad=1024:576:0:144 -target pal-dvd out.mpg


scale=1024:288 --> the video is scaled to the final display width.

pad=1024:576:0:144 --> vertical pixels are added to make it to 1024x576.

-target pal-dvd --> this will rescale the video to 720x576 and set a DAR of 16:9.