ScottSen
15th August 2005, 23:00
Hurray, my 5 days are up! :)
Let's skip the whole WMV suxor conversation. :) It meets my needs because I use MCE and want to stream dvd's to an extender. 'nuff said.
My goal is to have a dvd library on my mce machine, I don't care (that) much about the size of the wmv (though it better be smaller than the src vob). I am looking for equal'ish quality, and better compression than native vob.
First question:
* does anybody really understand aspect ratio's? lol.
dvd rez: 720x480 (right? I have read 704x480 as well). Okay, but happy bits in the mpg stream will tell the dvd player to display at 16:9.
720:480 / 16:9 = 1.1852
So, by my (apparently bad) calcs, pixels need to be stretched horizontally by 1.1852, yet... what I actually read is its 40:33 which is 1.212. <sigh>
Can anyone explain this?
Second question:
My source into WMV encoder is an avisynth script. Originally, I was doing an autocrop, then resizing vertically to shrink down to the correct aspect ratio (not that I know what that really is, heh). Seemed unsavory cuz I was throwing out bits. I tried instead widening the video, but things got a bit too big and slow for me. It finally hit me that WMV has a pixel aspect ratio parameter! So, now I just always send an autocrop'd clip to WMV, and set the PAR to 40:33.
* does that seem like the best way to do it?
Third question:
* Is there a default set of avisynth filters you suggest?
I realize this is a loaded question, cuz every film has different properties, but I really just want a generic set that is safe to run on all films. Hollywoody films, not anime or tv shows, etc. Currently I just use undot() and LimitedSharpen().
I would be pretty interested in a... "smoother". I am pretty scared of losing detail, but on some dvd's, when I look at a solid surface (say a wall), I can see a fairly random mottling of colors where it should be much smoother. An averaging/smoothing/bluring filter would be great there, but I really don't people/faces to look plastic/over-smooth either. :) So far, I am staying all YUY12 in my script, not sure if that is good/bad/indifferent, but if it matters or limits my smoothing options.
Last question:
I already wrote code to parse the vob, and just do a printf on the aspect ratio, so that I could tell WMV 40:33 vs 10:11 PAR. That kinda suxored, maybe there was an easier way? Anyway -- now I would like info on Audio Tracks. Specifically, I would like to know which track is 5.1 AC3 English (or 2 if that is not available). I don't want directories commentary, I dont want... well, something else. I want this so I can tell Dvd Decrypter which stream to pull down, and so I can tell dvd2avi which track to pull out.
* Suggestions on how to find the right audio stream?
I'm not too afraid of writing code -- is it some IFO I need to parse?
Thanks a ton for reading, and more for answering :)
Let's skip the whole WMV suxor conversation. :) It meets my needs because I use MCE and want to stream dvd's to an extender. 'nuff said.
My goal is to have a dvd library on my mce machine, I don't care (that) much about the size of the wmv (though it better be smaller than the src vob). I am looking for equal'ish quality, and better compression than native vob.
First question:
* does anybody really understand aspect ratio's? lol.
dvd rez: 720x480 (right? I have read 704x480 as well). Okay, but happy bits in the mpg stream will tell the dvd player to display at 16:9.
720:480 / 16:9 = 1.1852
So, by my (apparently bad) calcs, pixels need to be stretched horizontally by 1.1852, yet... what I actually read is its 40:33 which is 1.212. <sigh>
Can anyone explain this?
Second question:
My source into WMV encoder is an avisynth script. Originally, I was doing an autocrop, then resizing vertically to shrink down to the correct aspect ratio (not that I know what that really is, heh). Seemed unsavory cuz I was throwing out bits. I tried instead widening the video, but things got a bit too big and slow for me. It finally hit me that WMV has a pixel aspect ratio parameter! So, now I just always send an autocrop'd clip to WMV, and set the PAR to 40:33.
* does that seem like the best way to do it?
Third question:
* Is there a default set of avisynth filters you suggest?
I realize this is a loaded question, cuz every film has different properties, but I really just want a generic set that is safe to run on all films. Hollywoody films, not anime or tv shows, etc. Currently I just use undot() and LimitedSharpen().
I would be pretty interested in a... "smoother". I am pretty scared of losing detail, but on some dvd's, when I look at a solid surface (say a wall), I can see a fairly random mottling of colors where it should be much smoother. An averaging/smoothing/bluring filter would be great there, but I really don't people/faces to look plastic/over-smooth either. :) So far, I am staying all YUY12 in my script, not sure if that is good/bad/indifferent, but if it matters or limits my smoothing options.
Last question:
I already wrote code to parse the vob, and just do a printf on the aspect ratio, so that I could tell WMV 40:33 vs 10:11 PAR. That kinda suxored, maybe there was an easier way? Anyway -- now I would like info on Audio Tracks. Specifically, I would like to know which track is 5.1 AC3 English (or 2 if that is not available). I don't want directories commentary, I dont want... well, something else. I want this so I can tell Dvd Decrypter which stream to pull down, and so I can tell dvd2avi which track to pull out.
* Suggestions on how to find the right audio stream?
I'm not too afraid of writing code -- is it some IFO I need to parse?
Thanks a ton for reading, and more for answering :)