Aspect ratio and Bluray players

[hello_hello]

When it comes to displaying anamorphic video correctly, are all standalone players "dumb"?

I bought a Sony player for a relative a while back (BDP-S380) and tested it's ability to play anamorphic MKVs. Seems I may have made a large, fairly silly assumption, while only testing it using 16:9 anamorphic encodes.

Last week I bought a Samsung BD-D5500 player and tested them both more thoroughly.

(Edit: Due to operator error it seems I mistakenly concluded the Sony player wouldn't play anamorphic video correctly. It does. See post #8).

Seems they can only cope with 16:9 or 4:3 content. Any other display aspect ratio is wrong.
The Sony seems to "assume" 16:9, so it actually gets the aspect ratio correct for 16:9 video. The Samsung is dumber (depending how you look at it), it seems to assume square pixels, although it's easy enough to stretch the video to full screen dimensions and have it display 16:9, but once again only 16:9 video displays correctly.

I'll admit though I'd really like the Samsung player, if not for the aspect ratio problem. Even though the manual says it's USB input doesn't support external hard drives, I loaded two 2TB drives into a dual-bay dock and connected it to the player via USB. It acknowledged both drives as separate devices and happily read every file on both drives (probably about 1000 videos on each) and happily played whatever I asked it to. If it wasn't for the anamorphic problem it'd be a great media player (although preliminary testing indicates the PC may upscale a little better). I haven't tested the Sony player's USB abilities thoroughly yet.

I really only bought the Samsung player on a whim while I was purchasing a new TV (I thought it might make playing 3D content easier than using a PC), but for 2D stuff I'm back to using a PC.

Are there clever Bluray players out there, or are they all dumb in terms of aspect ratio? I'm considering exchanging the Samsung for something else while I still can, if there's a standalone player available with aspect ratio "smarts".

PS. Before the usual suspect posts to explain the "official" Bluray specs at me.... yes I'm well aware of them. If there's a player out there which thinks outside the official Bluray aspect ratio "box" though, I'd be keen to look at it.

Thanks.

[SeeMoreDigital]

When it comes to displaying anamorphic video correctly, are all standalone players "dumb"?

I bought a Sony player for a relative a while back (BDP-S380) and tested it's ability to play anamorphic MKVs. Seems I may have made a large, fairly silly assumption, while only testing it using 16:9 anamorphic encodes.No, they're not all dumb!

Most, if not all (.MKV compliant) hardware players look for "aspect ratio signalling" information stored within the video stream. Not within the MKV container.

EDIT: By the way. My Panasonic DMP-BDP210 can play anamorphic .MKV files just fine...

[hello_hello]

Cheers, I'll have to check it out.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Cheers, I'll have to check it out.I recommend you check your .MKV files to make sure their video streams contain aspect ratio signalling...

[Sharc]

No, they're not all dumb!

Most, if not all hardware players look for "aspect ratio signalling" information stored within the video stream......
Hmm.., yes, my old no-name DVD player (via SCART) followed the AR signalling of the stream perfectly.
Now my newer SONY BD player (well, it does not play mkv at all) stretches BD files straight to either 4:3 or 16:9, i.e. for a 720x576 picture it is not in accordance with the stream's AR signalling of 16:11 (for 16:9 DAR) or 12:11 (for 4:3 DAR) :rolleyes:

[SeeMoreDigital]

Now my newer SONY BD player (well, it does not play mkv at all) stretches BD files straight to either 4:3 or 16:9, i.e. for a 720x576 picture it is not in accordance with the stream's AR signalling of 16:11 (for 16:9 DAR) or 12:11 (for 4:3 DAR) :rolleyes:Really... So when you play "store bought" Blu-ray disc's which contain 4:3 content, your Sony will pump out a distorted 16:9 image!

If so, the player should not do this!

[Sharc]

Really... So when you play "store bought" Blu-ray disc's which contain 4:3 content, your Sony will pump out a distorted 16:9 image!

If so, the player should not do this!
No, not that bad! But 16:9 and 4:3 are always played back assuming the 'generic' PAR. Means I get a slightly (2%) too narrow picture for content with original ITU PAR (very often those DVD with 2 x 8 pixels left/right pillow). Not that this really hurts....
Same applies if I reencode such ITU DVD content with --sar 16:11. It is streched according 64:45 rather than 16:11 as I would wish.

Added:
Just like to add that my WD TV HD Media Player obeys the PAR (SAR) signaling perfectly.
So:
- SONY standalone => stubborn 16:9 or 4:3 display, discarding the AR signaling
- WD TV HD Player => follows aspect ratio signaling in the stream (same for MPC-HC with Haali and CoreAVC)

[hello_hello]

Well it appears you guys were correct. I didn't think I'd tested the Sony player so "carelessly" when I first bought it.

It just so happens I picked a few test encodes which had been remuxed with the custom ffbuild and the DAR had been removed/saved incorrectly in the process and I hadn't noticed at the time.

So armed with some anamorphic encodes which had been fixed, and a fresh anamorphic encode just to be sure, I tested the players again.
The Sony player handled everything I threw at it correctly. Even non-mod16 video.
The Samsung player.... not so much. It's either wrong or you can manually switch display modes to stretch the video to screen dimensions, in which case unless it's 16:9 video it'll still be wrong. I'll be returning it later today and/or trying to swap it for a Sony.

I wanted to buy the Sony in the first place but the sales guy assured me the Samsung was just as good and it'd be more convenient because it'll share a remote with the TV. The remote sharing has even started to annoy me though... I'm often opening up the menu on the wrong device etc.... I shouldn't have listened to the sales guy.

[hello_hello]

Most, if not all (.MKV compliant) hardware players look for "aspect ratio signalling" information stored within the video stream. Not within the MKV container.

Thinking about it, are you sure it's not the other way around?

What happened in my case was I just happen to pick test videos which had been remuxed using the custom ffbuild to fix incorrect colorimetry info, which removed the aspect ratio info in the process. I'd assumed it was the MKV container aspect ratio which had been removed, not the video stream aspect ratio.

As an example, for one of those problem videos (704x416) MediaInfo was reporting the DAR as 1.692, and the Original Display Aspect Ratio as 2.35 (correct). The Sony player was, I assume, following the 1.692 aspect ratio, which I guess to me looked 16:9(ish).

As it turned out after banging my head against the desk for a while trying to understand what was going on, I realised MPC-HC displayed the video as 2.40 as long as I used it's internal MKV filter, whereas using Haali caused it to display incorrectly too. That was when the penny finally dropped.... the problem was with the MKVs, not the player as such.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Thinking about it, are you sure it's not the other way around?I'm positive... It would seem hardware player manufacturers are not enthusiastic to add support for reading aspect ratio signalling stored at the (.MKV) container level. So until the situation changes, you need to "keep" the aspect ratio signalling in the video stream - Do not remove it!

Anyway, as far as I'm aware, MediaInfo does not read aspect ratio signalling stored at the container level. It reads it from the video stream (and rounds up the movie aspect ratio when present).


Cheers

[hello_hello]

Isn't "Original Aspect Ratio" as reported by MediaInfo, the aspect ratio in the video stream? Because that's the aspect ratio which remained correct, while the reported "Display Aspect Ratio" was incorrect until I fixed it using the MKVToolNix Header Editor. Once I fixed the DAR, MediaInfo then generally only reported "Display Aspect Ratio". The "Original DAR" value was no longer reported.

Given the above, I assumed it was the container level aspect ratio that I was fixing, and the player wouldn't play the video with the correct aspect ratio until I did.

Anyway, I exchanged the Samsung player for a Sony BDP-S480. I like it a little better anyway. It'd also happily read the entire contents of 2x 2TB hard drives when I connect them to it via a dual bay USB hard drive dock, only it scrolls through a large number of files much quicker, and of course it displays them with the correct aspect ratio. It'll be handy for those (rare) times I want to watch something and the computer's not running.

The menu systems of the two players are so similar it seems like one of the manufacturers might have pretty much copied the other, unless when it comes to BluRay players they all have menus which are set out in pretty much the same fashion. I haven't used a wide enough variety of them to know.