Aspect ratio problem using MeGUI

[fatcharlie]

I am in the process of converting The Sopranos from DVD to mp4. On my TV downstairs, a 55" LED, the videos do not fill the entire screen. I have about 4 inches of black on each side. It almost looks like it's displaying in 4:3. But upstairs, on my 47" LCD, it looks fine.

I have been using the darx and dary variables in my avs script in MeGUI, setting them to 16 and 9. So I would figure that my video would fill up the screen.

I don't know if my process is partially to blame. I deinterlace using TFM and a d2v file in VirtualDub, then save as avi using Lagarith. Then I edit my avs script to just include the darx, dary, and the AVI source, and feed that into MeGUI for the conversion to mp4. I realize saving as avi from VirtualDub is somewhat of a wasted step as I can just let MeGUI do the deinterlace. However, when I do this, My TV downstairs basically freezes up after each episode and I have to turn it off and on again to get to the next episode, and my TV upstairs will not fast forward. If I feed the lossless avi into MeGUI, everything works fine. I'm ok with the extra step, it doesn't bother me.

I used GSpot to get the size information from the videos in each step, maybe it can shed some light:

original DVD rip
pic: 720x480
sar: 1.5(3:2)
par: 1.185(32:27)
dar: 1.778(16:9)

Lagarith avi
pic: 720x480
sar: 1.5(3:2)
par: 1.00(1:1)
dar: 1.5(3:2)

MeGUI mp4
pic: 720x480
sar: 1.5(3:2)
par: blank
dar: 1.777(~16:9)

Here is the script that I use for VirtualDub and MeGUI:

#global MeGUI_darx = 16
#global MeGUI_dary = 9
LoadPlugin("C:\DVDTools\AviSynth\Plugins\DGDecode.dll")
MPEG2Source("C:\Movies\The Sopranos\S05\E01\E01.d2v")
LoadPlugin("C:\DVDTools\AviSynth\Plugins\TIVTC\TIV TC.dll")
TFM(D2V="E01.d2v")
TDecimate()
#AVISource("C:\Movies\The Sopranos\S05\E01\E01.avi")

For MeGUI I just switch commenting out the particular lines.

Could my problem be that the mp4 file is not reporting a PAR? If so, how can I change that? I don't do any cropping to the video because there are only 2 pixels of black on the bottom of the original DVD rip. I figure that if the DVD player will output the video in a size that fills the screen, then I should be able to achieve the same thing when converting to mp4. I have also tried using the force SAR option in MeGUI using 32:27, and the same results.

Or do I need to use a different GUI/encoder? One with more control over the picture size? Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[Socketman]

Im sorry i cant be of help but i do have a quick question. What device are you using to feed your mp4's to you 2 televisions. Are you streaming or using htpc ?

[fatcharlie]

USB stick.

[Socketman]

do you have any files that work fine on both of your panels. If so you could compare it to the problem file using mediainfo. Sounds like you 2 tv's handle mp4 differently. Maybe try a commercial encoder to help get you going. I have a small test file i use cause im always in a big hurry lol

[fatcharlie]

I tried forcing SAR to 40:33 in MeGUI on two episodes. Comparing the width of these two episodes to previously encoded episodes, they do look a little wider on my PC in MPC, so I'm hoping they'll look fine on my TV downstairs. I'm not that far into the series to see, so I'll have to wait. I will try MediaInfo, and see what that tells me. Thanks.

[fatcharlie]

Forcing SAR to 40:33 fixed the problem.