Aspect ratio

[Floatingshed]

I have a DVD that I'm backing up to mp4 (264 & aac).
It is 720x576 PAL and is 16:9 content, so it is anamorphic.
Should I leave it that size and shape or resize it to the correct AR, which I guess is something like 720x404?
This is for PC playback.
I know we don't talk about what is best here but is either option viable or is one bad practice and if so why?
Thanks.

[Keiyakusha]

In this case you should do what you like more.
By resizing to something like 720x404 you will have less vertical resolution so ask yourself if you really want that. Also check both variants on playback. If you see no difference, maybe you can end up with smaller filesize (less bitrate) by choosing 720x404

[yetanotherid]

Given that x264 anamorphic encodes are generally of a similar size to their xvid/divx resized counterparts, I mostly encode with anamorphic x264 video these days.... now I'm moving away from AVIs. If it's a DVD I just keep the AC3 audio rather than convert it but I much prefer to use the MKV container. If you're stuck with MP4 you might have to convert to AAC.
I know we don't talk about what is best here but in this case that's probably okay as there's no doubt you'll always lose more sharpness when resizing down (to say 720x404 as per your example) than you will with an anamorphic encode. A good anamorphic encode should lose very little or even no noticeable quality.

By the way, for a square pixel encode a width of 704 is generally more correct (for want of a better term) than 720 as 704 will generally give you the original aspect ratio with less cropping or skewing of the aspect ratio. (width and height should ideally be multiples of 16 so your 404 height has to be modified up or down to the next multiple of 16). It's easy to mess up the aspect ratio if you're setting the cropping and resizing yourself.

Which conversion program are you using? In my experience most don't skew the original DVD aspect ratio much when encoding anamorphic video but they often do when resizing as per your example. All the x264 encoders I've tried either make you crop the top and bottom of the picture to maintain aspect ratio.... which I dislike.... or they just resize the picture height to the nearest multiple of 16 which I dislike even more. Anamorphic encoding should allow the whole image to be resized to a mod16 height if necessary and the pixel aspect ratio then set to give a display aspect ratio that's identical to the original. At least in theory.....

[stax76]

@Floatingshed

In this case it's good practice assuming you signal to the encoder and not the muxer. Feel free to ask if you don't understand the difference.

[Hagbard23]

Should I leave it that size and shape or resize it to the correct AR, which I guess is something like 720x404?
This is for PC playback.

Resize it to 1:1 AspectRatio.

Anamorphic Encodings for PC just cause confusion - keep in mind, that you can upsize Anamorphic Encodings (there is not only the option of downsizing it...), if you care about loss of resolution. For example - Upsize it to 1024x576 (just a quick example).

[stax76]

Please elaborate

[GodofaGap]

Resize it to 1:1 AspectRatio.

Anamorphic Encodings for PC just cause confusion
This was true maybe 5 or more years ago when AR signalling was not supported by encoders and/or players. Nowadays, it shouldn't cause any problems, and definitely won't for private use.

[Ghitulescu]

This depends largely on the characteristics of the intended players.
That this won't allegedly pose problems for private use (I understand this as directed to non-professional players, id est something like VLC) is an issue somehow contradicted by "not so old" posts about the display behaviour of some software players (MPC-HC, VLC etc.) - a simple search would yield relevant threads. And even now, towards the end of 2010, there are still media players (those boxes with an HDD inside and video connectors) that do not always respect the DAR/PAR info, at least not on all outputs (analog vs. HDMI/DVI).

[Hagbard23]

Folks, remember that Quantization Matrices are roughly designed for Progressive 1:1(=square) Input, not for anamorphic (=rectangle) Input. There are several CQM's which give you the opportunity to change quality, but there are only a few (very few) Matrices, which are optimized for Anamorphic Encoding. So -unless you create your own CQM-(violation of Scene Rulez) quality is badly affected.This plays definitively a great role in MPEG4 ASP Business.

How the things are with AVC/H.264 i do not know exactly, but i can imagine, that noone of the developers spent a thought on anamorphic coding. They have enough in mind with the "normal" stuff...

Third: Anamorphic Encoding by itself is not intended for the use on LCD's/1:1 PAR's - As a matter of fact anamorphic encoding is surely underdeveloped over the years, and once a 16:9 XviD is passing my way, it looks like an exotic from the last century. TV sends in 16:9 <FORMAT> but not 16:9 anamorphic - here in Europe this is (not DVD's, due to specs) veeeeery seldom. One Reason for BluRay and new Containers was the Enforcement of anamorphic coding in the DVD Spec's. It was NOT possible to encode DVD's with 1:1PAR. So actually this (anamorphic) is what we want to abolish...

Last but not least: i do not believe, that any AVI-Synth filter of value is intended for the use with anamorphic (denoisers, sharpeners etc. etc. etc.) - it may work quite well, but i wouldn't sign that...in fact i would expect problems...

After that, the Hardware-Support plays a role - and i don't wanna start speaking of that cause its annoying.

What is -exactly- the reason not to encode 1:1? Keeping the Original original??? Hey folks, you are >encoding< the original, so where should we start discussing? In the Stone Age?

C'mon - everybody knows, that 1:1 Encoding is far more user friendly. What was the last Anamorphic MPEG4 Video, you have seen? Can you actually remember it?
This was true maybe 5 or more years ago

[stax76]

Thanks for explaining, it's a little bit out of my scope since I want file sizes be small.

[GodofaGap]

Folks, remember that Quantization Matrices are roughly designed for Progressive 1:1(=square) Input, not for anamorphic (=rectangle) Input. There are several CQM's which give you the opportunity to change quality, but there are only a few (very few) Matrices, which are optimized for Anamorphic Encoding.
Complete nonsense.


Third: Anamorphic Encoding by itself is not intended for the use on LCD's/1:1 PAR's - As a matter of fact anamorphic encoding is surely underdeveloped over the years, and once a 16:9 XviD is passing my way, it looks like an exotic from the last century. TV sends in 16:9 <FORMAT> but not 16:9 anamorphic - here in Europe this is (not DVD's, due to specs) veeeeery seldom. One Reason for BluRay and new Containers was the Enforcement of anamorphic coding in the DVD Spec's. It was NOT possible to encode DVD's with 1:1PAR. So actually this (anamorphic) is what we want to abolish...
Nonsense. Digital TV at standard resolutions IS send as anamorphic and Bluray was not intended to get rid of anamoprhic encoding. The point is that he already has an anamorphic source. He is not creating one.

Last but not least: i do not believe, that any AVI-Synth filter of value is intended for the use with anamorphic (denoisers, sharpeners etc. etc. etc.) - it may work quite well, but i wouldn't sign that...in fact i would expect problems...
Also nonsense.

[Hagbard23]

can you explain a little more than a short "nonsense" ?

It seems nonsense to me to write 3 times "nonsense", what do you think? Critics are welcome..

[GodofaGap]

Well you can first start explaining how a filter or CQM is affected by an image being anamorphic or not, or how you would design it such that it only works with 1:1 sources. I can't really explain this anymore than I can explain that pink elephants don't hide in my backyard.

In your second point (digital TV broadcast in Europe) you are simply wrong.

[yetanotherid]

What is -exactly- the reason not to encode 1:1? Keeping the Original original??? Hey folks, you are >encoding< the original, so where should we start discussing? In the Stone Age?

Take for instance a hypothetical example of a video which has pixels of a 2:1 aspect ratio. The pixel count may be 600x400 (I'm making up easy to work with numbers) but the display aspect ratio will be 1200x400.
Assuming no other editing or cropping etc, you'd encode using the same 600x400 resolution with the same pixel aspect ratio and in a perfect world your encode would match the original pixel for pixel.
What you're asking is why not first resize the image to 1200x400 and then encode it using square pixels, doubling the number of horizontal pixels which have to be encoded but in the end producing an output which still can't be of a higher resolution than the original.

Of course there's other factors which come into play such as whether the image has to be resized after it's cropped and it's argued that once you resize the benefits of anamorphic encoding may be negated, but me..... when encoding anamorphic DVDs I tend to try to crop to the nearest mod16 resolution so no resizing needs to be done, although some encoders are happy to let you encode to non-mod16 dimensions if you want to.

C'mon - everybody knows, that 1:1 Encoding is far more user friendly. What was the last Anamorphic MPEG4 Video, you have seen? Can you actually remember it?

Far more user friendly when?
The OP is backing up a DVD for playback on his PC where anamorphic video shouldn't be a problem and can easily be fixed if it is. "User friendly" not so long ago meant shrinking DVDs to a size that'd fit on a single layer disc, but I converted to AVI anyway. I only wish I'd skipped that "user friendly" step and started with anamorphic MKVs.
If someone showed me that sizing up and using square pixels gave better results I'd do it that way, but I'm not convinced myself and many X264 GUIs won't even let you do it.

PS. For those who say anamorphic encodes cause problems with software players..... I've come across numerous videos which haven't been encoded to the correct aspect ratio, many using square pixels in an image which wasn't resized correctly..... but fortunately almost anything will go into the MKV container so I open the video using MKVToolnix, set the display resolution to what it should be, remux it into an MKV file and in a couple of minutes I have a video that'll display correctly in both VLC and MPC.

Oh...... and it's a great method for fixing the DVDs which were sadly encoded using the UTI resize method. I've always suspected that 9 times out of ten at least, DVDs don't use the UTI resize method. Now, after having converted quite a few BluRay videos to standard definition and comparing them to my non-UTI DVD encodes, I'm certain of it.

[yetanotherid]

keep in mind, that you can upsize Anamorphic Encodings (there is not only the option of downsizing it...), if you care about loss of resolution. For example - Upsize it to 1024x576 (just a quick example).

Trouble is, many GUIs won't let you do it or at best you might have to calculate the up-sized dimensions yourself, after cropping, which doesn't make for a user-friendly experience.....

[Hagbard23]

Thanks for replying - i will think about it a couple of days...i regret, if my thoughts in the last posts were somewhat "incorrect".

Sorry for that..

[Ghitulescu]

While some/most assertions of Hagbard23 are let's say inaccurate, he nevertheless pointed to an issue I'd like to comment: PAR of 1:1 and HDTV.
It appears that HDTV cannot be stopped. Except for 1440x1080i, all other resolutions have a PAR of 1:1. There is no need to change the PAR from 1:1 if one foresees the future. Both the TV and the PC would use a PAR of 1:1. Why not profit from this unification?

[Hagbard23]

So here a little data about Quantization matrices:

Here we have one for Progressive Scanorder and 1:1 PAR and on the right side one for Interlaced Scanorder and 1:1 PAR:

http://www.edv-tipp.de/gif_images/dvd/scan.gif

Here an example for Prg.Scan & 1:1 PAR - it is a typical QM - MPEG uses a similar one and almost all CQM's look the same (but with different weighting):

http://www.edv-tipp.de/gif_images/dvd/kika1.gif

Here an example of a different optimized Matrix by Didee:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?postid=504958#post504958

The HVS Optimization is a try to get it optimized for anamorphic and non 1:1 content. It has larger coefficients for horizontal scanning and lower ones for vertical scanning.
So there is a higher compression for the horizontal axis. As far as i can remember, this has something to do with the frequencies used for vertical and horizontal but honestly speaking: This is out of my Scope...
http://www.edv-tipp.de/gif_images/dvd/dct.gif

That are just examples how CQMs might be affected by aspect ratio...it is no prove of truth for my older posts - i just thought it may be interesting. I am sure, there should be a connection between CQM's and aspect-ratio - at least for the human eye, but i don't have eaten wisdom with spoons - i am not sure about the whole problem.

Nonsense. Digital TV at standard resolutions IS send as anamorphic and Bluray was not intended to get rid of anamoprhic encoding. The point is that he already has an anamorphic source. He is not creating one.
Okay - i made the mistake, that nearly all TV Broadcast sends anamorphic - and it is 4:3. Here in Germany (and i can only speak for Cable-Broadcast, not SAT or HDTV) TV sends all in 4:3 Anamorphic Standard. Even if there is a Channel which sends a 16:10 or 16:9 Picture, this picture is not 16:9 anamorphic - it is simply 4:3 PAR with a Picture-AR of 16:9. So: it is NOT sent as 16:9 anamorphic. In Fact it is sent 4:3 Anamorphic. I never in my life pressed the "16:9" Key on my TV-Remote, except for DVD Playback via PC.

There are several movies in 2,35:1 which you can watch on TV Channels ... i Never have had one movie or one channel in which i had to switch to 16:9 anamorphic to get the right picture. That was what i tried to explain.

[GodofaGap]

The HVS Optimization is a try to get it optimized for anamorphic and non 1:1 content.
I don't really see where this is said in the linked thread.

It has larger coefficients for horizontal scanning and lower ones for vertical scanning.
So there is a higher compression for the horizontal axis.
I don't see how this is related to anamorphic when you consider that CQMs operate on a macroblock basis. You can make some assumptions that with your CQM that humans are more sensitive to detail in one direction or the other, but then this would be true for all pictures and not just anamorphic ones.

I think there is a reason why the whole CQM topic died out. In the end they only made things worse, or at best resulted in a shift on quants.

[Hagbard23]

I think there is a reason why the whole CQM topic died out. In the end they only made things worse, or at best resulted in a shift on quants.

In Fact - you have no idea of it.

[stax76]

Be nice to each other...

[GodofaGap]

Okay - i made the mistake, that nearly all TV Broadcast sends anamorphic - and it is 4:3. Here in Germany (and i can only speak for Cable-Broadcast, not SAT or HDTV) TV sends all in 4:3 Anamorphic Standard. Even if there is a Channel which sends a 16:10 or 16:9 Picture, this picture is not 16:9 anamorphic - it is simply 4:3 PAR with a Picture-AR of 16:9. So: it is NOT sent as 16:9 anamorphic. In Fact it is sent 4:3 Anamorphic. I never in my life pressed the "16:9" Key on my TV-Remote, except for DVD Playback via PC.
Well if we are going to throw insults I'm going to say you are rather clueless about PAR related to SD television.

[Hagbard23]

Well if we are going to throw insults I'm going to say you are rather clueless about PAR related to SD television.
Yeah - this is an insult as a matter of fact - and in contrary to myself, you are rather clueless of how you would reason this or your other ("Nonsense" "Nonsense" "Nonsense") Insults.

In Fact you disrespect other opinions without having constructive reasons. You only tell something about Pink Elephants - and this tells me a lot of your way of thinking.

Sorry - i was nice to everybody - its not me who is throwing insults.

You have absolutely no clue about QM's - i mean i am not a "Pro" but i know a littlebit of what i am talking about and i described, what i know about this.

Sorry for being offtopic - @mod: delete it, if you think it is absolute wrong in this thread - i would understand this.

[neuron2]

Be nice to each other... Ditto. And stay on topic!

[2Bdecided]

Oh...... and it's a great method for fixing the DVDs which were sadly encoded using the UTI resize method. I've always suspected that 9 times out of ten at least, DVDs don't use the UTI resize method. Now, after having converted quite a few BluRay videos to standard definition and comparing them to my non-UTI DVD encodes, I'm certain of it.Do you mean ITU instead of UTI?

If so, I agree - lots of professional equipment seems to ignore ITU standard (i.e. that approximately 704 = width of defined aspect ratio), and assumes 720 = width of defined aspect ratio instead.

All DVD SD video is anamorphic. If you upscale to square pixels, it's inefficient; if you downscale to square pixels, you lose resolution. If you encode anamorphic maybe something somewhere will get confused.

Do you know, there's a fairly common decoder chip with gets confused with 1:1 PAR MPEG-2? MPEG-2 lets you flag DARs of 16x9 or 4x3, or 1:1. Most people implement this as 1:1 being the PAR (i.e. square pixel), but this decoder chip thinks that 1:1 is the DAR - any square pixel content (whether it's a 4x3 image, 16x9 image, or whatever) gets displayed as a square(!!!) in the middle of the screen!

Now, you'd think that all the MPEG-2 stuff would have had all the bugs worked out by now, wouldn't you?!

So you never know what will happen. You just have to encode for what you know works now, try to avoid any decisions you might regret, and hope that the shiny new HDTV you buy next year likes all your files!

Cheers,
David.

[GodofaGap]

In Fact you disrespect other opinions without having constructive reasons. You only tell something about Pink Elephants - and this tells me a lot of your way of thinking.
It is not always possible to bring up constructive reasons for something that simply is not true. Since there are few topics so purposely discussed to death as CQMs for XviD on this forum, I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard for you to come up with a statement that says that one is designed only for 1:1, accompanied with an explanation why.

That is why I made the pink elephant comparison. If you are going to claim there are pink elephants in my backyard, don't expect me to put up a webcam there and live stream it over the internet. I'm just going say you are talking nonsense.

You have absolutely no clue about QM's - i mean i am not a "Pro" but i know a littlebit of what i am talking about and i described, what i know about this.
If you can say of what you described actually related to PAR, we could have a discussion. I've done this whole CQM thing 5 or so years ago. Trust me, it leads nowhere.

[mpucoder]

lots of professional equipment seems to ignore ITU standard (i.e. that approximately 704 = width of defined aspect ratio), and assumes 720 = width of defined aspect ratio instead.
That is true for PAL, for NTSC the active area is approximately 711x486

Most people implement this as 1:1 being the PAR (i.e. square pixel)
And they are correct, the value of 1 in MPEG-2 aspect_ratio_information means "SAR 1,0 (Square Sample)" (ISO/IEC 13818-2 table 6-3)

[SeeMoreDigital]

... lots of professional equipment seems to ignore ITU standard (i.e. that approximately 704 = width of defined aspect ratio), and assumes 720 = width of defined aspect ratio instead.
Indeed...

When I first mentioned this (years ago), loads of people argued against me :eek:

[Sharc]

Surprisingly, my SONY (promotors of the blu-ray standard) BD player does not correctly stretch the standardized 16:11 SAR of 720x576 -- or (704+16 borders) x576 -- encoded material, but plays it slightly distorted as 64:45 ....

[Motenai Yoda]

Surprisingly, my SONY (promotors of the blu-ray standard) BD player does not correctly stretch the standardized 16:11 SAR of 720x576 -- or (704+16 borders) x576 -- encoded material, but plays it slightly distorted as 64:45 ....
64:45 is precise, the no-itu sar or par to reduce (or extend) the active image to 16/9.
(720/576)/(16/9) = (576/9) / (720/16) = 64/45
also for many years dvd can be processed without following the itu's standards, so most dvds should be played and resampled with the generics sar/par. (2.5% of ar error isn't notable for the most).

[2Bdecided]

When I first mentioned this (years ago), loads of people argued against me :eek:Well, it's still wrong - and it's still impossible to play it back properly (i.e. without 2% error) on standard analogue TVs and DVD players alongside properly (ITU) sampled footage without messing with the TV's geometry for each source.

But you were certainly right to say that it's common practice.

Cheers,
David.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Well, it's still wrong - and it's still impossible to play it back properly (i.e. without 2% error) on standard analogue TVs and DVD players alongside properly (ITU) sampled footage without messing with the TV's geometry for each source.Not necessarily...

When I first mentioned the issue we did not have many "square pixel" sources to compare (non-square) "anamorphic DVD" pixel sources to... but now we do!

Indeed, you can now buy Blu-ray disc movies which come pre-packaged with their (lower def) DVD equivalents... Just compare the two disc's and you'll see the anamorphic DVD image does not follow the ITU spec!

[Sharc]

Not necessarily...

.....Indeed, you can now buy Blu-ray disc movies which come pre-packaged with their (lower def) DVD equivalents... Just compare the two disc's and you'll see the anamorphic DVD image does not follow the ITU spec!
In this case, the practice deviates again from the standard, because blu-ray specifies a sar of 16:11 (mpeg4 approximation of the ITU 512:351) for 720x576 16:9 PAL material.

[Ghitulescu]

Indeed, you can now buy Blu-ray disc movies which come pre-packaged with their (lower def) DVD equivalents... Just compare the two disc's and you'll see the anamorphic DVD image does not follow the ITU spec!

How to compare?

To explain a bit: we have a DVD that has 720x576 (480) pixels. These have to be output in PAL/NTSC form, which is not pixels but frequency (each chip has its own way of fitting the pixels into a frequency curve). Then the PAL/NTSC signal is separated into Y and C, each follows its own processing path until they reach the RGB electron guns. The deflection takes care of placing the image on the screen (overscan). The amplitude is set in factory, but can be modified by user (old) or serviceman (new).

So in the end there's no many possibility for the average Joe to spot the subtle difference.

The digital way is also occult. For analog signals there always be an overscan, how it places the visible image on screen still depends on the chip[maker].

IMHO, there's too much trouble for something that is beyond our control and it's not really important. Should have been important, I'm sure the industry would have done something by now.

[yetanotherid]

Do you mean ITU instead of UTI?

LOL! Yes I did. What did I say........? :-)

I found one last night..... encoded the BluRay of Amadeus, The Director's Cut to standard definition XviD/AVI and compared it with my old DVD encode. No doubt about it, that DVD used the ITU resize method and I missed it, but I'm still finding nine times out of ten they don't.

It's always amazes me when I see video encoded using the ITU resize method, and then obviously encoded using a GUI which happily resizes to the nearest mod16 after cropping, how between the two of them the video is obviously squished down... or stretched width-ways.... yet the person who encoded the DVD was apparently oblivious to it.

I still don't understand why AutoGK is the only XviD/DivX encoder which can intelligently resize and crop a video. Until I learn more about using AVISynth I've at least managed to modify some of AutoGKs scripts to run with MeGUI so it'll resize and crop a video without distorting the aspect ratio (non-anamporhic x264 encoding).

[Sharc]

LOL! Yes I did. What did I say........? :-)

....I still don't understand why AutoGK is the only XviD/DivX encoder which can intelligently resize and crop a video.....
What about StaxRip, HDConvertToX ....

[stax76]

I still don't understand why AutoGK is the only XviD/DivX encoder which can intelligently resize and crop a video

You can try StaxRip's resize and crop features:

http://thumbnails23.imagebam.com/9836/1d2c4198356290.jpg (http://www.imagebam.com/image/1d2c4198356290)

Trouble is, many GUIs won't let you do it or at best you might have to calculate the up-sized dimensions yourself

In StaxRip by default the resize slider has the maximum width of the source file as range but there is option to define the range, I've never tried to upscale but feature request and improvements can always be discussed.

http://thumbnails23.imagebam.com/9836/1d2c4198356290.jpg (http://www.imagebam.com/image/1d2c4198356290)

[yetanotherid]

To be honest StaxRip did my head in when I tried it a while back. It's probably just me but it's options didn't seem all that intuitive and I didn't have the motivation to mess around too much at the time. Last time I tried it I discovered the x264 preset or template I was trying to use seemed to include an automatic cropping of 8 pixels from each side of the video and I didn't understand why....
I can't say it's not a good program as I haven't given it the time to learn it properly, but I will admit I did give it a spin a year or two ago and I seem to remember the older version being more user friendly.... at least for someone new to the program.

Both HDConvertToX and StaxRip do have a useful function which displays the aspect ratio error, so using them it is possible to do what AutoGK does automatically but it can involve a bit of messing around trying different cropping and resizing till you get it right.

What AutoGK does is crop the video as necessary then resizes it to the set width.... sort of.... the way I remember it AutoGK resizes to the height required in order to achieve at least the specified width. Then it crops the sides a little more if necessary to give the exact width.
For example you might set the width to 720. The closest mod16 height might be 304. However without distorting the aspect ratio that might give you a resolution of (for example) 728x304. So AutoGK chops another 4 pixels off each side where you won't notice them gone anyway, the top and bottom haven't been cropped unnecessarily and the aspect ratio is the same as the original.

No other GUI I've ever used does it this way. Is there a way to get Staxrip to do something similar? All other GUIs I've tried either over-crop to achieve mod16 or they resize the video to the nearest mod16 dimensions after cropping, often distorting the aspect ratio to some degree. Personally I think the way AutoGK does it is more clever.

AutoGK also has a 4:3 option which once again intelligently crops a video to give a 4:3 display aspect ratio. No more 4:3 video that's not quite 4:3 so doesn't quite fill a 4:3 monitor properly. I really miss that function.

Of course all the above involves square pixel encoding, not anamorphic. I'm yet to ponder whether it's necessary for anamorphic encoding.... although thinking about it.... if I crop a DVD to a non-mod16 height I guess I'd expect a GUI to resize it up to the next mod16 height and then set the pixel aspect ratio so the resulting display aspect ratio isn't a distorted version of the original.... rather than just over-crop or resize to the nearest mod16.

I'll confess I've not done enough anamorphic encoding of that nature to see if many conversion programs work as I'd expect them to, but if it's not that simple I'd be curious to know why it can't be. The majority of anamorphic encodes I've done I just cropped to mod16 dimensions so I didn't have to think about aspect ratio distortions.

[stax76]

There are guides and screencasts in the Help menu explaining the basics. I've great doubts using resize filters for non HD sources unless you target some device.

[yetanotherid]

I've great doubts using resize filters for non HD sources unless you target some device.

I'm probably being dumb, but I'm not sure what you mean there.

[stax76]

I mean that you probably could do well without any resizing.

[yetanotherid]

I mean that you probably could do well without any resizing.

But if you crop to a non-mod16 resolution isn't resizing inevitable, even if it's just resizing to the nearest mod16 resolution and living with any aspect ratio error? And even if you're converting a non-HD source such as a DVD, unless you're doing an anamorphic recode isn't it impossible to avoid resizing?

I'm not trying to give anyone a hard time here.... just on the off-chance it appears that way.... I have the utmost respect for anyone producing any software, especially for free.... I'm just trying to learn more as I go.

To be honest, until I switched to x264 I wouldn't use any other program except AutoGK. I tried quite a few others but dispute it's age and the fact that some features could be added/altered to make it even better, AutoGK has always been my benchmark because it makes it very hard to get things such as aspect ratio wrong.... in fact it virtually won't let you... and it's so easy to use. I just wish it supported x264.

Even as recently as a few weeks ago I converted the BluRay of "Prince Of Persia, The Sands Of Time" to standard definition. I was messing about with some other programs at the same time so I also converted it to the same 720xsomething resolution using MeGUI and HDConvertToX. When comparing the results it was obvious the MeGUI and HDConvertToX x264 encodes encodes looked virtually identical, but the AutoGK XviD encode looked noticeably sharper than both of them. No matter what I tried in respect to changing resize methods or adding and removing filters I couldn't get either of the other programs to match the AutoGK output for quality. I've still no idea why, although I'd be keen to work it out.

Anyway.... I'll definitely be spending more time with StaxRip soon to see if we can become friends.

[GodofaGap]

But if you crop to a non-mod16 resolution isn't resizing inevitable, even if it's just resizing to the nearest mod16 resolution and living with any aspect ratio error? And even if you're converting a non-HD source such as a DVD, unless you're doing an anamorphic recode isn't it impossible to avoid resizing?
If you want mod16 resolutions you could under or overcrop, or not do anything and hope the codec will handle it (I think most will at least do mod4 or even mod2).

The method you described cropping height->resizing->cropping width is really one of the last things I'd recommend, but it's a possibility too.

[2Bdecided]

How to compare?

To explain a bit: we have a DVD that has 720x576 (480) pixels. These have to be output in PAL/NTSC form, which is not pixels but frequency (each chip has its own way of fitting the pixels into a frequency curve). ...They're almost all using a multiple of 13.5MHz (actually, 27MHz) for their pixel clock at the DAC.

Some have registers to adjust what happens to the pixels of 720 which fall outside the ITU/SMPTE active video range. e.g. send them through, hard crop them, or gently window them. Window is usually suggested default (where available).

Unless you call the compositor or graphics core and intentionally scale it, I've never seen one that takes a 720 pixel image and scales it down into 704 or 711 or whatever.

So the location of those 720 pixels (or at least the centre 704ish of them) is pretty standard. Filtering / oversampling / waveform shaping outside the SD video bandwidth is kind of irrelevant - you're never going to see the difference (unless the display is really strange - good ones gently band limit the incoming signals to remove out-of-band noise).

Cheers,
David.

[yetanotherid]

If you want mod16 resolutions you could under or overcrop, or not do anything and hope the codec will handle it (I think most will at least do mod4 or even mod2).

The method you described cropping height->resizing->cropping width is really one of the last things I'd recommend, but it's a possibility too.

I generally do overcrop to obtain a mod16 resolution with anamorphic encodes, but for square pixel DVD encodes I'm generally using AutoGK and it resizes as I described.

Given that when encoding a DVD to standard definition using square pixels there's no option but to resize it's anamorphic pixels if you want to keep the aspect ratio correct, why isn't it good to resize to a mod16 height while you're at it and then crop the width if necessary? Here's my logic....

You take an anamorphic DVD and reduce the height of the anamorphic pixels to make them square so instead of the video's display dimensions being something like 1280x544 it's now 704x300 (just making up an example). So there you have yourself an aspect ratio distortion as the mod16 output resolution will probably be 704x304. While you were resizing those anamorphic pixels anyway, where's the harm in resizing them to 712x304 and then cropping 4 pixels off each side before you encode?

In the above example the alternative would be to live with the aspect ratio distortion resulting from having to resize to 704x304 instead of 704x300, or to crop a noticeable amount off the height before resizing to give yourself a 704x288 output, assuming you're wanting to do the math every time or the GUI you're using is clever enough to do it for you. Most of them don't, they just distort the aspect ratio to fit the closest mod16 resolution and even if technically overcropping gives you a perfect anamorphic to square, pixel for pixel encode it'd have to give you a noticeably sharper resized image before I'd prefer it to the AutoGK method. Does it, because I don't think I've ever noticed it does?

Of course the above assumes the width wasn't cropped and the original 1280 anamorphic DVD width resized nicely down to 704 after making it's pixels square, but what if you had to crop a few from the sides and your output is now 698x300? You either:
1. Resize to 704x304 and live with any aspect ratio distortion.
2. Go for the perfect pixel for pixel encode and keep hacking pixels off until until you're at something like 688x288, or depending how much needed to be cropped from the width in the first place, even 688x272, using of course a GUI which will do it for you (I don't think I've used one) or a GUI which will at least let you know how much of a mess you're making of the aspect ratio while you tear your hair out trying to crop till you get it right, or
3. Use a program like AutoGK which will automatically resize the whole thing up to 708x304 and then just crop a couple more pixels off each side.

Option 3 sounds good to me.

Of course all the above really only applies to XviD/DivX square pixel encodes where you're pretty much limited to mod16 dimensions by most GUIs. For x264 encodes non-mod16 and/or anamorphic encodes may be a better solution but while they play fine on my PC how do hardware devices cope? Do non-mod16 dimensions use more CPU power while decoding the video and will non-mod16 or anamorphic video play on all hardware devices?

[GodofaGap]

Given that when encoding a DVD to standard definition using square pixels there's no option but to resize it's anamorphic pixels if you want to keep the aspect ratio correct, why isn't it good to resize to a mod16 height while you're at it and then crop the width if necessary?
I'm not saying its not "good", it's just not my first choice. Tolerating a small AR error can be acceptable to someone as well. I just don't like over cropping so I'd rather prefer keeping a small black bar or a non-mod16 resolution.

The rest of your story is a little bit of a mystery to me. DVDs are either 720x576 for PAL or 720x480 for NTSC. There are no 1280 width anamorphic DVDs.

[Maccara]

Of course all the above really only applies to XviD/DivX square pixel encodes where you're pretty much limited to mod16 dimensions by most GUIs. For x264 encodes non-mod16 and/or anamorphic encodes may be a better solution but while they play fine on my PC how do hardware devices cope? Do non-mod16 dimensions use more CPU power while decoding the video and will non-mod16 or anamorphic video play on all hardware devices?

Yes, hw devices cope, or they are broken. Have you noticed, 1080p is not mod16?

(yes, I know 1080/1088 and how it's handled in x264 / h.264, but this does not concern the user)

[yetanotherid]

I'm not saying its not "good", it's just not my first choice. Tolerating a small AR error can be acceptable to someone as well. I just don't like over cropping so I'd rather prefer keeping a small black bar or a non-mod16 resolution.

"The last thing you'd recommend" has much stronger "not good" implications than "just not my first choice" though.
Those small black bars when under-cropping annoy me so much I'd prefer to live with some aspect ratio distortion if that were the only other option.

The rest of your story is a little bit of a mystery to me. DVDs are either 720x576 for PAL or 720x480 for NTSC. There are no 1280 width anamorphic DVDs.

Sorry, I thought what I was referring to was obvious.
DVD and media players have two choices when displaying those anamorphic pixels. When connected to a HD display they should expand them back to their intended non-square size and then the whole image is upsized to fit the display. When connected to a SD display (CRT TV) they effectively do the opposite to keep the intended aspect ratio.

The non-ITU aspect ratio for a 16:9 PAL DVD is 1.42222. So the way I understand it this means when resizing the DVD using the first (upsize) method, each horizontal DVD pixel is equivalent to 1.422222 square pixels in width. In square pixel terms, this gives the 16:9 PAL DVD an effective display resolution of 1024x576. Okay... not the 1280 width I referred to previously but I was making it up as I went and all the same resizing theory still applies.
When playing the same video on a standard definition display it can't stretch the width of the video to restore aspect ratio so it has to reduce the height. That might leave the SD monitor displaying the video at it's 720 pixel width but at a height of 404 pixels.

What I'm referring to can easily be demonstrated on a PC. Open a DVD video using a media player, then open a 720x? square pixel AVI and compare the amount of screen real estate they use. They're both 720 pixels wide, but the DVD video's width will be noticeably larger on the monitor. Or it should be.
When you convert an anamorphic DVD to AVI it's usual to use the downsize resizing method, so your 720x576 vob file becomes a 720x400 avi.
(most people resize down after cropping because a width of 704 rather than 720 will usually give you an equivalent mod16 height which requires less over-cropping, tiny black bars or aspect ratio distortion.)

So all that takes me back to my question as to why you wouldn't recommend resizing the AutoGK way. It seems to me, given all the resizing going on anyway as anamorphic pixels are reduced to square ones, the width is cropped and then resized up to 720 again.... or down to 704..... your encode isn't going to be of any better quality than mine. Sure, I prefer to lose a few pixels off the sides so I can resize to a mod16 height which doesn't require any black bars or over-cropping to keep the aspect ratio intact, while you prefer to keep the side pixels and have those black bars which drive me nuts..... but that aside.... is the different resizing going to cause the quality of our encodes to differ in a way which causes you to not recommend my preferred method?

I still think it's by far the better way to do it.

[yetanotherid]

Yes, hw devices cope, or they are broken. Have you noticed, 1080p is not mod16?


Yeah I have but while I've not done many (or maybe any) 1080p encodes myself, some of the ones I've seen have either been 1088p with four rows of incredibly annoying pixels top and bottom, or cropped down to the appropriate mod16 height.

I have wondered about the 1080p resolution, but never thought to ask about it until now. So are 1080p BlueRay discs really 1080p or do they tend to be a close mod16? And why is 1080p used rather than 1088p etc? Now you've bought it up, I have to know... :(

Damn you!! :)

[GodofaGap]

"The last thing you'd recommend" has much stronger "not good" implications than "just not my first choice" though.
Those small black bars when under-cropping annoy me so much I'd prefer to live with some aspect ratio distortion if that were the only other option.
?

You are going to see black bars anyway unless you are encoding letterboxed 4:3 for a 16:9 display. If the movie is 2.35:1 there are going to black bars on your display whether you like it or not. As long as there is nothing wrong with your monitor calibration black is going to be black.


Sorry, I thought what I was referring to was obvious.
DVD and media players have two choices when displaying those anamorphic pixels. When connected to a HD display they should expand them back to their intended non-square size and then the whole image is upsized to fit the display. When connected to a SD display (CRT TV) they effectively do the opposite to keep the intended aspect ratio.

A TV doesn't really need to resize an anamorphic image. The image is that way because that's how TVs work in the first place! :)

As for your question, I don't like to crop the actual image if it can be avoided.

[Hagbard23]

LOL - GodofaGap...LoL...

I said: "Anamorphic Coding causes Confusion"
You Said: "Nonsense"

Now - look at the whole discussion .. what do you see? So - i see Confusion all over the place...seems i was right.

[GodofaGap]

I said: "Anamorphic Coding causes Confusion"
You Said: "Nonsense"
First you might wanna look back at page 1 then.

Now - look at the whole discussion .. what do you see? So - i see Confusion all over the place...seems i was right.
You would be right if yetanotherid and I were talking about encoding anamorphically... but we aren't. We are talking about different methods to convert anamorphic content to square pixels (which is what you recommended to do in the first place!). If anything that is a lot more confusing then simply doing nothing and setting an AR signal in the codec or container, because there is more than one way of doing it and with all you are trading one thing for another. :)

[Maccara]

Yeah I have but while I've not done many (or maybe any) 1080p encodes myself, some of the ones I've seen have either been 1088p with four rows of incredibly annoying pixels top and bottom, or cropped down to the appropriate mod16 height.
"Bad" encodes or bad decoder, or both.

I have wondered about the 1080p resolution, but never thought to ask about it until now. So are 1080p BlueRay discs really 1080p or do they tend to be a close mod16? And why is 1080p used rather than 1088p etc? Now you've bought it up, I have to know... :(


They are "really" 1080p for all intents and purposes. (internally encoder usually encodes mod16 (i.e. 1088) which is cropped on playback, but this is done transparently for the user)

I have no idea how "they" arrived to those specific HD resolutions, so someone else has to fill in the missing info.

My point is just that non-mod16 should not be a huge issue with h.264, as the standards support it just fine.

[Ghitulescu]

I have no idea how "they" arrived to those specific HD resolutions, so someone else has to fill in the missing info.

It was the closest "sort of" multiple for both PAL and NTSC.

[yetanotherid]

LOL - GodofaGap...LoL...

I said: "Anamorphic Coding causes Confusion"
You Said: "Nonsense"

Now - look at the whole discussion .. what do you see? So - i see Confusion all over the place...seems i was right.

I agree with GodofaGap's reply to your post there.
We're discussing the conversion of anamorphic content (DVDs) to square pixels and all the different approaches and resizing choices available. That's where there's lots of potential confusion.

When encoding anamorphic video to anamorphic video it should, in theory, be a piece of cake. A decent GUI should simply be able to adjust the pixel/display aspect ratio after you've cropped in order to keep the aspect ratio of your encode identical to the original, and off you go without having to give it a second thought.

[yetanotherid]

?

You are going to see black bars anyway unless you are encoding letterboxed 4:3 for a 16:9 display. If the movie is 2.35:1 there are going to black bars on your display whether you like it or not. As long as there is nothing wrong with your monitor calibration black is going to be black.

Well, we may be arguing semantics but there's black bars and then there's parts of the screen which aren't displaying anything.
Maybe it's my monitor calibration, maybe it's just that my monitor has a better contrast ratio than an LCD display.... I've not really thought about that till now.... but I still watch a lot of video on my trusty old 22" Trinitron CRT monitors (I'm not an LCD fan) and the encoded black bars are definitely noticeable. When compared with the rest of the non-video area, they're a very dark grey.

Maybe you can tell me if this points to it being my monitor calibration. I hope not as I like the way they are, but I sometimes use VobSub for displaying external subtitles. In order to take advantage of the wasted vertical screen real estate when watching 2.35 video, I get VobSub to add black bars to it on the fly so I can place the subtitles below the picture rather than over it. Those VobSub black bars are also more of a dark grey than the black of the remaining non-picture area.

A TV doesn't really need to resize an anamorphic image. The image is that way because that's how TVs work in the first place! :)

Well something must resize it because depending on the type of DVD (4:3 or 16:9) the pixels are resized differently. I assume it's the DVD player which does that, but if you're watching a standard definition video on a HD display and it's filling the screen, then regardless of the original pixel shape in the video it's being upsized by someone.

As for your question, I don't like to crop the actual image if it can be avoided.

Each to their own I guess. Being a 22" CRT guy when it comes to watching video on the PC, I regularly zoom the video a bit to increase it's size. For wide screen stuff that means I'm cropping 10% or more off each side. I can't say I've ever felt like I've missed out on anything while watching video that way. In fact I've always thought a 2.35 aspect ratio is somewhat over the top. Maybe my eyes just aren't far enough apart??....... :-)

[yetanotherid]

One more black bar thought......
Many DVDs don't have nice sharp or straight edges at the top or bottom. Often the image fades to black a little, sometimes there's junk which needs to be cropped, often there's a black row or two of pixels at the top or bottom which only make it half way across the picture (anyone know what causes that?). I like to remove that extra junk and have a nice sharp crop. You can't do that by undercropping and encoding black bars..... ;-)

[GodofaGap]

Well, we may be arguing semantics but there's black bars and then there's parts of the screen which aren't displaying anything.
Maybe it's my monitor calibration, maybe it's just that my monitor has a better contrast ratio than an LCD display.... I've not really thought about that till now.... but I still watch a lot of video on my trusty old 22" Trinitron CRT monitors (I'm not an LCD fan) and the encoded black bars are definitely noticeable. When compared with the rest of the non-video area, they're a very dark grey.
Well if black is not really black that's probably bot good, but if you like the way your monitor looks don't change it for me. :)
It doesn't have to be your monitor though, it can also be a PC range<-> TV range renderer issue.

I have done something similar but then within ffdshow. I always let it expand the frame to a 16:9 ration. This means everything wider than 16:9 gets letterboxed, and everything narrower (e.g. 4:3) gets pillarboxed. This makes it easier when I watch the video on my TV cause I can always leave it on 'widescreen'-mode without having to worry it is going to trigger one of those auto adjust modes. The other advantage, like you said, is that for 2.35:1 the subtitles appear partly in the black area.

Well something must resize it because depending on the type of DVD (4:3 or 16:9) the pixels are resized differently.
A CRT TV doesn't have pixels. To put it simply: it just draws longer lines.

Each to their own I guess. Being a 22" CRT guy when it comes to watching video on the PC, I regularly zoom the video a bit to increase it's size. For wide screen stuff that means I'm cropping 10% or more off each side. I can't say I've ever felt like I've missed out on anything while watching video that way. In fact I've always thought a 2.35 aspect ratio is somewhat over the top. Maybe my eyes just aren't far enough apart??....... :-)
>.<

:)

One more black bar thought......
Many DVDs don't have nice sharp or straight edges at the top or bottom. Often the image fades to black a little, sometimes there's junk which needs to be cropped, often there's a black row or two of pixels at the top or bottom which only make it half way across the picture (anyone know what causes that?). I like to remove that extra junk and have a nice sharp crop. You can't do that by undercropping and encoding black bars..... ;-)
I only see that when I do analogue captures... but that's not very often these days anymore.

[Ghitulescu]

.... often there's a black row or two of pixels at the top or bottom which only make it half way across the picture (anyone know what causes that?). ....

I only see that when I do analogue captures... but that's not very often these days anymore.

Did any of you bother to see the specs for PAL or NTSC systems and find out what are those 2 incomplete lines? :devil::rolleyes::devil::rolleyes:
They are part of the standard.

[GodofaGap]

Did any of you bother to see the specs for PAL or NTSC systems and find out what are those 2 incomplete lines? :devil::rolleyes::devil::rolleyes:
Nope.

[Ghitulescu]

:) :) :)

[kypec]

Did any of you bother to see the specs for PAL or NTSC systems and find out what are those 2 incomplete lines? :devil::rolleyes::devil::rolleyes:
They are part of the standard.
Then how come that only some commercial DVDs exhibit this "standard" behaviour and some don't? :devil:
Yeah, those incomplete lines drive me crazy too, and I've only like
22" CRT TV...:mad:

[Ghitulescu]

Those with 2 halves are full. The others are matted versions.

You shouldn't be able to see those (part of the overscan) but it's possible to appear, depending on the editing.

[kypec]

Halved lines are only visible in 16:9 (widescreen) titles on my 4:3 CRT TV as there must be obviously big horizontal black bars added to top & bottom of the widescreen picture.

[Ghitulescu]

This is the most obvious situation. I should have mentioned from the beginning, but I thought that people have now only widescreens. :rolleyes:

[yetanotherid]

Those with 2 halves are full. The others are matted versions.

You shouldn't be able to see those (part of the overscan) but it's possible to appear, depending on the editing.

What if you're playing back via a PC and have the video card adjusted to eliminate any overscanning?

Maybe that's why I don't mind cropping off a few pixels here and there if necessary to eliminate any aspect ratio error. Especially from the sides. I'm probably cropping off less bits than are falling off the screen for most people anyway. :)

[yetanotherid]

Well if black is not really black that's probably bot good, but if you like the way your monitor looks don't change it for me. :)
It doesn't have to be your monitor though, it can also be a PC range<-> TV range renderer issue.

It must be me. I've got two PCs hooked up to the same two 22" monitors (each is dual input) and it's all the same. Then again I did set up the monitors for ease of reading text primarily.
Mind you I've tried using ffdshow to adjust contrast/brightness/gamma many times and always given up. If I were to make black blacker then I've got to bump up the brightness etc to compensate or the picture's too dark, but then I spend the entire video watching the XviD/x264 compression at work. I've never been able to find the happy setting which doesn't reveal dark areas as blocks of varying shades of dark etc.

I have done something similar but then within ffdshow. I always let it expand the frame to a 16:9 ration. This means everything wider than 16:9 gets letterboxed, and everything narrower (e.g. 4:3) gets pillarboxed. This makes it easier when I watch the video on my TV cause I can always leave it on 'widescreen'-mode without having to worry it is going to trigger one of those auto adjust modes. The other advantage, like you said, is that for 2.35:1 the subtitles appear partly in the black area.

What do you use for a media player? I just use MPC on the PC but I'm about to setup a widescreen TV for someone running off a PC so I'm looking for something more "sitting on the other side of the room with a remote" friendly. So far I've had a brief play with GB-PVR, Media Portal and XBMC but not really ventured much into what they'll do.
I'll keep your ffdshow trick in mind.

I still haven't got round to seeing any specs for PAL/NTSC systems yet, but I've been meaning too..... :)

[Ghitulescu]

What if you're playing back via a PC and have the video card adjusted to eliminate any overscanning?

Maybe that's why I don't mind cropping off a few pixels here and there if necessary to eliminate any aspect ratio error. Especially from the sides. I'm probably cropping off less bits than are falling off the screen for most people anyway. :)

You can't eliminate the overscanning from PAL/NTSC/SECAM signals. Yes, there are professional monitors that allows you this (underscan, quite logic ;)). On the other hand, the VGA connection is not PAL/NTSC, is something else. Those cards with TV-out either output a cropped image (eg the START button is missing in windows) or add themselves black borders (with forced rescaling of the content, as the original 576 lines have to be squashed into some 520-540). Either way, bad!!!! Besides, the technicians usually know about overscan and use it creatively....

Why are you so obsessed by those 2 halflines? The core of the action is somewhere else, you know ;)

[GodofaGap]

What do you use for a media player?
For the TV just WMC + Media Control to enable proper seeking and audio/subtitle switching for MKVs. I rarely watch video on the PC, and WMP seems to suffice for me there.

[yetanotherid]

Why are you so obsessed by those 2 halflines? The core of the action is somewhere else, you know ;)

I watch a lot of video on the computer monitor and I can see them and they annoy the &^$* out of me.
I think it's some obsessive, compulsive, neatness disorder which, as long as everything inside my PC is neat, orderly and free of half lines, allows me to go for months at a time without mowing the lawn or trimming the edges.

For the TV just WMC + Media Control to enable proper seeking and audio/subtitle switching for MKVs. I rarely watch video on the PC, and WMP seems to suffice for me there.

I guess I'll keep investigating then. Even just for watching stuff on the PC I can't bring myself to use WMP, I dislike it so much. In fact I almost didn't install one of the media players I referred to as it required me to upgrade WMP to version 11. I still had version 9 (or whichever one comes with XP) installed on this PC and if I've ever run it, it's been by accident.

[Ghitulescu]

I watch a lot of video on the computer monitor and I can see them and they annoy the &^$* out of me.
I think it's some obsessive, compulsive, neatness disorder which, as long as everything inside my PC is neat, orderly and free of half lines, allows me to go for months at a time without mowing the lawn or trimming the edges.

There are some conclusions to be drawn:
1. never use a device for improper uses - in your case, don't use the PC for watching movies, it was not designed to do so, better use a standalone - HDTV is practically the first real step in harmonizing PC and video.
2. you can design from scratch your own TV standard and use it. Be however prepared for lots of conversions and odd issues.

[GodofaGap]

I guess I'll keep investigating then. Even just for watching stuff on the PC I can't bring myself to use WMP, I dislike it so much. In fact I almost didn't install one of the media players I referred to as it required me to upgrade WMP to version 11. I still had version 9 (or whichever one comes with XP) installed on this PC and if I've ever run it, it's been by accident.
I think there was good reason to criticize WMP in versions earlier and while there are definitely better players out there, I really think the current one is not bad as a basic player. If I watched all my movies on the PC I probably wouldn't use it, but like I said, the times I watch movies on my PC are very rare and usually only for checking something. I can't really stand sitting behind a PC screen doing nothing for more than 90 minutes.

[2Bdecided]

What do you use for a media player? I just use MPC on the PC
I watch a lot of video on the computer monitor and I can see them and they annoy the &^$* out of me.I think if you press "9" on the numeric keypad in MPC, it'll zoom the image a tiny amount, cropping the half-lines in the process. Job done. Press more to crop more (if you need to).

I might be wrong about the number - try them all! I think 5 resets it if you find you've done something strange.

Cheers,
David.

[yetanotherid]

There are some conclusions to be drawn:
1. never use a device for improper uses - in your case, don't use the PC for watching movies, it was not designed to do so, better use a standalone - HDTV is practically the first real step in harmonizing PC and video.

Aside from revealing a few half lines which I can crop off anyway, and aside from not having format/codec issues to worry about when using a PC, and aside from easily being able to fix aspect ratios errors as well as audio sync problems, what exactly is the advantage of using a standalone unit rather than the PC? I mean, the PC certainly seems to display the video well and the picture quality looks fine to me. What are all the people with home theatre PCs missing out on?

2. you can design from scratch your own TV standard and use it. Be however prepared for lots of conversions and odd issues.

I guess I could if cropping off an extra couple of lines when converting wasn't so much easier. Wouldn't designing my own TV standard be a bit like owning a car with an old radio and deciding to design a whole car from scratch rather than just replace the radio in the car I already own?

[Ghitulescu]

Aside from revealing a few half lines which I can crop off anyway, and aside from not having format/codec issues to worry about when using a PC, and aside from easily being able to fix aspect ratios errors as well as audio sync problems, what exactly is the advantage of using a standalone unit rather than the PC? I mean, the PC certainly seems to display the video well and the picture quality looks fine to me. What are all the people with home theatre PCs missing out on?
First of all a standalone according to today's standards resembles more to a PC than anything else. However, unlike a PC which generally runs Windows on CISC CPUs, the standalones use Realtime OSes (some of them based on various flavours of linux) running on RISCs. This is very important.

Secondly, the HW manufacturers have to buy the specs and to licence all the technologies they use and don't own. If PowerDVD (as an example) generates a BSOD, the dead cat is thrown in the Microsofts' yard, which in turn throw it back claiming not-compliance. A manufacturer has not this excuse at hand. This however does not prevent the manufacturers to throw "beta" devices on the market and using the customer as the quality control dept., each revision being formed by a Firmware.

Thirdly, the PC is much too versatile and this is its Achilles' heel. The SW creators (eg Microsoft), the HW manufacturers and suppliers (eg Intel) and the media publishers (eg Warner) worked hand in hand to kill its potential. As an example, any new PC ('98 onwards) was obliged to fulfil the requirements of PC98 for audio; while generous, PC98 imposed a mandatory resampling of all audio to 48kHz (bye bye CD Audio, unless an official hack, ASIO, appeared from a 3rd party). For video, the situation hasn't changed in good either, see eg the HDMI/HDCP issues. On top of these, the PC as a system is extremely complex and thus prone to errors of various origins, hard to diagnose unless one is an expert. One doesn't need to be an expert to use a standalone.

Then there's the input strategy: a standalone has no mouse, but a keypad and a remote (some PCs are driven by a remote, too). The use is generally unitarian among the products of the same manufacturers. However, for some 15+ years the manufacturers also decided that a MENU is needed to save some bucks and called it an ergonomic solution. Damn.

Until the advent of HDTV (which brought a lot of problems, not only technical but also legal), it was not so easy to connect a PC to a TV, even using a TV-out-enabled-graphic card. For audio, the HF inferno within the case made them inappropriate for music (some of them even picked up the HDD spinning noise or that of a CD drive).

And probably not at all the last item, a PC equipped with the right HW (audio card, video card, drivers, software) would cost probably 3x more than a standalone with better specs. I still have to find the PC that beats the 100€ (now) Sony BDP-S360 both in easy to use and price.

The only advantage of the PC might be that it may play formats a standalone would/could/will not support. However, except for those people that use bitmaps to create an animation in a strange format, all video sources an user can create follow the industry standards (camcorder, fotoaparat) and most of the other "gray zone" sources (like SAT, DVB-T etc.) also follow the industry standards. So, the alleged advantage of the PC disappears, since converting a DVD into DivX or a CD into MP3 is, erh, hmm, something done to get you occupied, not a functional requirement. It's like going from Arlington to Washington via Chicago and arguing "See, this is the advantage of the airplane over the car, it's much more convenient to fly than to drive". Why complicate things?

I guess I could if cropping off an extra couple of lines when converting wasn't so much easier. Wouldn't designing my own TV standard be a bit like owning a car with an old radio and deciding to design a whole car from scratch rather than just replace the radio in the car I already own?Actually if the carradio was a Becker Mexico it might be worth rebuilding the car around it ;)

The point was really this one, if something bothers you, either change it or don't use it (pick an alternative).

[yetanotherid]

First of all a standalone according to today's standards resembles more to a PC than anything else. However, unlike a PC which generally runs Windows on CISC CPUs, the standalones use Realtime OSes (some of them based on various flavours of linux) running on RISCs. This is very important.

Well I guess we could argue the pros and cons of PCs v standalone units all day, but none of it would change the fact my PC works perfectly as a media player, which to me kind of negates any argument that I shouldn't be using it for that purpose.

I could argue the PC is designed to play video in the same way a standalone unit is, unless the video card and software media player manufacturers etc designed their products for other purposes and the fact they combine to play video is only some fortunate accident.

I can't say I'd buy the "kill it's potential" argument given the types of potential-killing restrictions which have been placed on standalone units since the days of VHS. There's certainly a far greater likelihood of being able to play a region restricted DVD or work around any HDMI/HDCP issues when using a PC than there is when using a standalone player.

Granted, a PC is complex and prone to errors which can be hard to diagnose as a result, but one certainly doesn't need to be an expert to understand that if a standalone unit won't play a particular file there's not much likelihood of being able to do anything about it. Unless of course you use a complex and error prone PC to modify the file, or to convert the video into a format a non-expert can play using a standalone player.

Yes, my PC is no doubt more expensive than a standalone unit, but that doesn't seem like a sound argument for spending more money on a standalone unit in order to do a job the PC is already capable of doing. Not to mention the fact that older PCs can continue to have a useful life as media playback devices after they've been replaced by newer models, further reducing the need for spending additional money on a dedicated media player.

Yes, a PC can be noisy, and when building one for media playback that can be taken into consideration, but along with any input strategy arguments, it's more of a function v form choice than a reason for arguing a device is being used for a purpose for which it wasn't intended to be used. I'd rather use a mouse and navigation bar to jump 30 minutes into a video than to use a fast forward button or enter a time code into a menu any day.

I don't understand the argument that converting a DVD into DivX or a CD into MP3 is something done to get you occupied, rather than a functional requirement. Not unless you've found a method of playing CDs on your ipod, or a way to fit hundreds of DVDs in your pocket, and even if it could be argued that's just something to keep you occupied, you'd have to concede sitting through tedious menus and watching mind numbing FBI warnings over and over doesn't exactly fit into a functional requirement category.

Then of course there's those dedicated units which happily record content but don't provide any method of moving the content they record onto another device, even if the device you want to move it to happens not to be a PC.

It's like going from Arlington to Washington via Chicago and arguing "See, this is the advantage of the airplane over the car, it's much more convenient to fly than to drive". Why complicate things?

Why not just stay in Arlington and not bother getting out of bed?
I'm not sure I understand the analogy, or how having hundreds of songs sitting on a hard drive ready to play is ultimately more complicated than hunting through a CD collection and changing discs every time you want to listen to a couple of songs. Or how a standalone CD player is going to play the music you bought online without the added the complication of burning it to a disc first. I'm not sure how streaming video from one room to another is necessarily less convenient, or how removing the hard drive from a caddy connected to the PC in the bedroom and dropping it into a caddy connected to the PC in the family room is a convenience negated by the degree of complication involved.

The point was really this one, if something bothers you, either change it or don't use it (pick an alternative).

A point based on an assumption, I assume, that changing it or not using it won't bother me even more? But cropping off a couple of uneven lines while I'm already cropping isn't really too much extra bother.

[Ghitulescu]

I said my opionion, you said yours. I'm happy with mine, you're happy with yours.:)

:)

I could bring new arguments in the favour of mine. You could bring new arguments in the favour of yours.

:)

I could bring killer arguments against yours, you could bring killer arguments against mine.

As long as everyone uses what s/he likes, there's no point in argueing. I think we can stop here.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Well this topic looks as good as done now!

That is until somebody else raises the exact same subject in a few months time...

[yetanotherid]

Well this topic looks as good as done now!
That is until somebody else raises the exact same subject in a few months time...

Did I mention the fact that the majority of DVDs don't use the ITU resize method? :D

[2Bdecided]

I could argue the PC is designed to play video in the same way a standalone unit is, unless the video card and software media player manufacturers etc designed their products for other purposes and the fact they combine to play video is only some fortunate accident.Do you live in the USA. If so, chances are you can't even begin to imagine the pain involved in making PCs play 50Hz (PAL / European) content properly. Maybe you don't even know that 99% of PC monitors won't even display each frame from a 50Hz video once each (or the same number of times each).

Cheers,
David.

[Ghitulescu]

I can't say I'd buy the "kill it's potential" argument given the types of potential-killing restrictions which have been placed on standalone units since the days of VHS. There's certainly a far greater likelihood of being able to play a region restricted DVD or work around any HDMI/HDCP issues when using a PC than there is when using a standalone player.
I have to explain myself a bit. For people that use the PC to play MP3 and divx/xvid&co (obtained from commercial or home made audio / video sources that observe the industrial standards) it would make no difference and most of them do not notice the changes the signal is subjected while travelling the internal paths. Yes, the PC may unlock several "locks"* in order to be what you said it is.
I use the PC as a tool, and these subtle restrictions are extremely annoying. And also I use pro tools, they cost more but they don't obey or need copy protections (would make no sense in a studio, would they?)
I don't understand the argument that converting a DVD into DivX or a CD into MP3 is something done to get you occupied, rather than a functional requirement. Not unless you've found a method of playing CDs on your ipod, or a way to fit hundreds of DVDs in your pocket, and even if it could be argued that's just something to keep you occupied, you'd have to concede sitting through tedious menus and watching mind numbing FBI warnings over and over doesn't exactly fit into a functional requirement category.
Well playing the music or videos on an iPod is not exactly playing on a PC, yeah? ;). Besides, once the PC was used to removed the FBI warning, no standalone would ever bother you with these warnings. No PC I know, in its "genuine" state, would let you skip these warnings, the software players must also enforce the DVD standards.
Then of course there's those dedicated units which happily record content but don't provide any method of moving the content they record onto another device, even if the device you want to move it to happens not to be a PC.
That's why I always insisted on using industrial formats. I see no point in converting a DVD into an AVI (it's less than 1 cent per DVD storage on a 1TB HDD), unless there are other reasons (I'm not going further). The standards always have provided a method to play the last-but-one generation formats (BD plays DVD, DVD plays VCD, S-VHS plays VHS, Hi8 plays Video8, HDV plays DV and so on).

* A DVD or a BD drive must be hacked in order to eliminate say both the regional/zonal code and the rip-lock (generally 2x). Normal drives are "killed" to reuse my words.

A software/hardware combination needs to be hacked again in order to "simulate" an uninterrupted HDCP-chain, or bye-bye HDTV on a PC. Failure to complain (which is most of the time with preinstalled SW/HW) means no HDTV but downscaled to SDTV.

The PC HW/SW must be hacked or bypassed in order to provide a bit-perfect pass-through for digital audio (say digital-out from a CD drive to optical-out of the soundcard). It's not possible with any PC98-compliant PC or newer in its native state.

Since Microsoft "forgot" to implement the CI interface, no PayTV can be watched (legally) on any XP computer or newer. One needs to hack it.

Do I need to continue? Do you know how many times have you broken the laws in order to make your PC able to play whatever you like with no restrictions?

[yetanotherid]

I have to explain myself a bit.

Are you able to offer an explanation which provides an explanation? :)

I use the PC as a tool, and these subtle restrictions are extremely annoying. And also I use pro tools, they cost more but they don't obey or need copy protections (would make no sense in a studio, would they?)

So there's a line I'm not seeing which allows a PC to be used to create media, but not to play the media it created? That's odd.
What about the "never use a device for improper use" argument? Was the PC designed to be a recording studio, or a movie studio etc, or has the hardware and software designed to give it that functionality succeeded in a way the hardware and software designed to enable playback of that media has failed?

Well playing the music or videos on an iPod is not exactly playing on a PC, yeah?

No, but I can't imagine why you think I said it was. You stated that converting media served no purpose other than to keep you occupied, and I pointed out a genuine purpose.

Besides, once the PC was used to removed the FBI warning, no standalone would ever bother you with these warnings. No PC I know, in its "genuine" state, would let you skip these warnings, the software players must also enforce the DVD standards.

Which makes sitting through FBI warnings a functional requirement of watching a movie how exactly?

That's why I always insisted on using industrial formats.

I'm not sure insisting on industrial formats is an argument for not using a PC to play non-industrial formats.... or for playing industrial formats for that matter.

I see no point in converting a DVD into an AVI (it's less than 1 cent per DVD storage on a 1TB HDD), unless there are other reasons (I'm not going further). The standards always have provided a method to play the last-but-one generation formats (BD plays DVD, DVD plays VCD, S-VHS plays VHS, Hi8 plays Video8, HDV plays DV and so on).

Which is all very nice, but doesn't allow me to play the BD I just rented on my DVD player. Of course I could buy a standalone BD unit, but I'm still waiting for a compelling argument for not using the BD drive I already have in my PC.
The ability of my smart phone to play AVIs is just one reason for converting my DVDs to AVI, and as for industry standards.... well that just changes according to demand. You'd probably have to go out of your way to find a DVD which doesn't play AVIs these days and no doubt BD players capable of playing MKV and/or MP4 files etc won't be far behind. I guess you can thank the thousands of people who aren't insistent on sticking to industrial standards for the fact your phone can use an MP3 as a ringtone or your ipod can play MP4s. Although where's the "industrial standards" line you've drawn? Are there enough DivX capable DVD players for DivX to be considered a standard, or are you still waiting?

A DVD or a BD drive must be hacked in order to eliminate say both the regional/zonal code and the rip-lock (generally 2x). Normal drives are "killed" to reuse my words.

When you say "hacked" I assume you're emotionally referring to "unlocking"? Unlocking being a function built into almost every unit by their manufacturers who wish to appear to be following the "rules" dictated to them, but who in reality know users don't want to be inflicted with those sorts of limitations?
I really don't understand how the word "killed" could be used to describe a device which has certain feature limitations removed.

A software/hardware combination needs to be hacked again in order to "simulate" an uninterrupted HDCP-chain, or bye-bye HDTV on a PC. Failure to complain (which is most of the time with preinstalled SW/HW) means no HDTV but downscaled to SDTV.

Even so, if doing so works and allows the PC to play HD video, how's that an argument for not using a device for a function for which it wasn't intended? Or should you not use an "unlocked" DVD player either because it wasn't intended to be unlocked?

Since Microsoft "forgot" to implement the CI interface, no PayTV can be watched (legally) on any XP computer or newer. One needs to hack it.

I thought there were plenty of pay TV friendly PC, TV tuner cards?

Do I need to continue?

Yeah.... I think you do.

Do you know how many times have you broken the laws in order to make your PC able to play whatever you like with no restrictions?

No I don't. Which laws have I broken? Australian laws of course, as that's where I live.
And just out of curiosity, why doesn't your professional software break those same laws as it ignores the copy protection on your own copy protected media?

One thing still hasn't changed. Despite your arguments against it, my PC still works perfectly as a playback device for all my media, oblivious to the fact you don't think it was intended for that use and I therefore should not be using it that way.
I must admit I'm so used to using the PC incorrectly, when on the odd occasion I do take out a CD to play it, I feel like I've stepped back into the dark ages. You remember those bad old days.... when music shuffle was a description reserved for carousel CD players with ten discs in their drive, and every time you watched a movie you were forced to sit through advertisements and FBI warnings first. You've got to love those industry standards. ;)

[Ghitulescu]

Which is all very nice, but doesn't allow me to play the BD I just rented on my DVD player. Of course I could buy a standalone BD unit, but I'm still waiting for a compelling argument for not using the BD drive I already have in my PC.
The ability of my smart phone to play AVIs is just one reason for converting my DVDs to AVI, and as for industry standards.... well that just changes according to demand. You'd probably have to go out of your way to find a DVD which doesn't play AVIs these days and no doubt BD players capable of playing MKV and/or MP4 files etc won't be far behind. I guess you can thank the thousands of people who aren't insistent on sticking to industrial standards for the fact your phone can use an MP3 as a ringtone or your ipod can play MP4s. Although where's the "industrial standards" line you've drawn? Are there enough DivX capable DVD players for DivX to be considered a standard, or are you still waiting?
AVI is not an industry standard, BTW. Neither divx, despite being licensed (for standalones) thru Divx networks if I'm not mistaken. An industry standard is generally issued as a standard (ITU, JIT, SMPTE, AES, EBU and so on), sorry for the unfortunate repetition.
Why doesn't your phone play DVDs or WAV (CD-rips) if the demand was so high? Why the iPod plays only MP4s? Is Jobs not listening to what his customers want? Why do the music portals sell compressed music only? Answer: because people wanted it, and why would the studios stop people going bulk wise in the wrong direction?
When you say "hacked" I assume you're emotionally referring to "unlocking"? Unlocking being a function built into almost every unit by their manufacturers who wish to appear to be following the "rules" dictated to them, but who in reality know users don't want to be inflicted with those sorts of limitations?
That's circumventing of technological means and bla bla, Australia signed already AFAIK the protocol and this is valid in AU too. Any door, any safety means (alarms and so on) have a backdoor, just in case the owner forgot the pass or the key. Hacking the door or the safety alarm is when one doesn't have the right to do this. Both the rip-lock and the region hack have not been implemented as "on/off", "enable/disable" features, cracking them necessitated people to know the architecture, to trace the commands and registers and so on. An on/off feature is eg the CD speed at some Plextors, one can press Eject for some seconds to enable or to disable it. RCE and Riplock are not this kind. RCE on standalones are generally a method of quick "relabelling" marchandises designed for one market to another one, PAL UK gear (Region 2) to Australia (R4) or Russia (R5), NTSC JP (R2) to US (R1) and so on, without the need to open the case, reprogram the EEPROM, repack the device. For 10.000 pieces that could be days or weeks.

I thought there were plenty of pay TV friendly PC, TV tuner cards? You'd be surprised. The limitation is in software, and no driver can pass through the HAL. So, unless MS would bring a KBxxxxxx patch, or the HW manufacturers would find a hack/alternative (illegal, they can be sued by MS under DMCA), not a single chance. The paytv decoding can be done in SW only, using so called softcams, and since a softcam usually cannot access a subscription card, makes it illegal.
And just out of curiosity, why doesn't your professional software break those same laws as it ignores the copy protection on your own copy protected media?
They are designed to create music and videos, that is people using them are the copyright holders. You'd be surprised to find out how many generations a video can stand before it reaches you. Copy control is for distribution formats (CD, DVD, BD) and for end users.
One thing still hasn't changed. Despite your arguments against it, my PC still works perfectly as a playback device for all my media, oblivious to the fact you don't think it was intended for that use and I therefore should not be using it that way.
.... and every time you watched a movie you were forced to sit through advertisements and FBI warnings first.
Nope, I use the PC to "detoxify" the DVD. As a tool. Then it can be played everywhere, on a PC too. But your PC still plays the FBI warnings, because PUOs are part of the DVD specs and unless one hacks it, they will be displayed and unskippable.
You've got to love those industry standards. ;)Yes, I do, they assure me the compatibility and playability across systems and technologies. As I explained above, in a previous message: one can pack the VCD, unaltered, in a DVD structure and live happy. DVD content can be remuxed into a BD structure and played back by any BD player. I am assured for one generation.

There was a chaos with all the codecs a PC needed to play all the formats (99.999% transcodes from DVDs, the rest from SAT and TV recordings) people used for the last 10 years. Codecs incompatible one to each other, crashes, new betas etc. Several people packed the most compatible codecs in "packs" like the CCCP one. Spend 5 minutes to search doom9 for the guides that specifically ask "before xxx please remove any codec packs you have installed". That's too much work for little gain.

[yetanotherid]

Why doesn't your phone play DVDs or WAV (CD-rips) if the demand was so high?

Errr.... because it's not. Who'd want to play a DVD disc with their phone or spend hundreds of dollars more for a device with enough memory to hold an equal number of songs as wave files rather than MP3s? Of course if you want to play wave files you can spend the money on a device with a miniature hard drive but most people are happy with a cheaper device which plays MP3s. Demand, supply and price all factor into the equation.

RCE on standalones are generally a method of quick "relabelling" marchandises designed for one market to another one, PAL UK gear (Region 2) to Australia (R4) or Russia (R5), NTSC JP (R2) to US (R1) and so on, without the need to open the case, reprogram the EEPROM, repack the device. For 10.000 pieces that could be days or weeks.

So these devices aren't being "killed" after all? Or do they suffer a different type of death depending on the intended market?

You'd be surprised. The limitation is in software, and no driver can pass through the HAL. So, unless MS would bring a KBxxxxxx patch, or the HW manufacturers would find a hack/alternative (illegal, they can be sued by MS under DMCA), not a single chance. The paytv decoding can be done in SW only, using so called softcams, and since a softcam usually cannot access a subscription card, makes it illegal.

Really?? You better explain that to the "industry standard" CableLabs as they seem to be under the impression that's what the CableCard is for.
http://www.cablelabs.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CableCARD
http://www.amd.com/us/products/pctv/tv-wonder-tuners/Pages/digital-cable-tuner.aspx

They are designed to create music and videos, that is people using them are the copyright holders. You'd be surprised to find out how many generations a video can stand before it reaches you. Copy control is for distribution formats (CD, DVD, BD) and for end users.

So you're the copyright holder of all the media which you modify with your software?
To be honest, I'd find it unlikely that even "professional" software could open and modify DRM protected media, but you didn't really answer the question as to whether your use of the software breaks laws in the same way you're claiming I break them.

Nope, I use the PC to "detoxify" the DVD. As a tool.

That's interesting. I use it for the same reason. Do you think though that's what the PC was designed to do? If the answer's no, then why can you use it for that purpose if I can't use it to play the media as well?

Yes, I do, they assure me the compatibility and playability across systems and technologies. As I explained above, in a previous message: one can pack the VCD, unaltered, in a DVD structure and live happy. DVD content can be remuxed into a BD structure and played back by any BD player. I am assured for one generation.

That'd have to be the definition of "too much work for little gain" wouldn't it?

There was a chaos with all the codecs a PC needed to play all the formats (99.999% transcodes from DVDs, the rest from SAT and TV recordings) people used for the last 10 years. Codecs incompatible one to each other, crashes, new betas etc. Several people packed the most compatible codecs in "packs" like the CCCP one. Spend 5 minutes to search doom9 for the guides that specifically ask "before xxx please remove any codec packs you have installed". That's too much work for little gain.

It's also irrelevant to the argument as to whether a PC was intended to be used as a media device and whether you should be using it as one.
Codec problems are pretty trivial when it comes down to it. And as you pointed out, these days codec packs such as CCCP make it easy. I use CCCP myself. If it's too hard, use a media player which only uses it's own internal codecs rather than system codecs.
Too much work for too little gain is having to convert video to DVD format and burn it to disc so I can watch in on the TV when my PC can play it "as is" and it's already hooked up to the TV. I'm still not seeing the argument as to why I shouldn't use it.

I am seeing an argument based on some line you've drawn which allows a PC to be used as a tool, under a definition which allows it's use as a tool for purposes convenient to you, but one which stops short of allowing it to be used as a tool for playback, based in no small part on an argument for sticking to industry standards... yet of all the possible playback devices a PC is the one most likely to cope with non-industry, non-standards..... and I've still no reason to believe the quality of media is going to suffer for having been played on a PC instead of a standalone device... and my PC is still playing all the media I want it to play even if that's not the purpose for which it was intended. No extra work for any further gain required.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Both you guys are way off-topic now...

[Ghitulescu]

I suggest a mod to move if possible (if not then we can copy/paste the rhetoric ourselves and let him/her delete these posts from here) to a new thread I created on this purpose here -> http://forum.doom9.org/showpost.php?p=1450062&postcount=1

[GodofaGap]

Well playing the music or videos on an iPod is not exactly playing on a PC, yeah? ;). Besides, once the PC was used to removed the FBI warning, no standalone would ever bother you with these warnings. No PC I know, in its "genuine" state, would let you skip these warnings, the software players must also enforce the DVD standards.
A PC in its "genuine" state doesn't really do anything then start up and then complain there is nothing to boot. There is no reason why a software DVD player *must* enforce the complete DVD standard. There are some things you'd better support (like decoding MPEG2), but not allowing to skip some content is not one of them.

That's why I always insisted on using industrial formats. I see no point in converting a DVD into an AVI (it's less than 1 cent per DVD storage on a 1TB HDD)
I can't do anything but frown at the "storage is cheap" comments you see so often nowadays. If I can keep the functionality and quality of the DVD at a level I want for perhaps between 1/4 or 1/6 of the original size, I'm still going to pay a lot less on storage than you. Perhaps you have money growing inside your pockets, but I'd rather spend it on other things. :)