Normal or Anamorphic resize for DVD

[Nikos]

This is a question for advance users.
I want to convert one .avi movie with res 608x256, 25 fps
to mpeg2 for PAL DVD authoring.
I know two ways for resizing the movie.

1. Normal resize [4:3]
BicubicResize(704,336,0,0.5,10,0,588,256)
AddBorders(0,120,0,120)

2. Anamorphic resize [16:9]
BicubicResize(704,448,0,0.5,10,0,588,256)
AddBorders(0,64,0,64)


Which resize have optimal results.
Any technical info will be appreciate.
Thanks

[Inc]

As you already got an almost 2.35:1 Avi in a PAR 1:1 state you should NOT take into consideration upscaling it to an Anamorph Pixelspect Ratio.
The resulting quality isnt worth it and your encoding will be even mor hungry for bits just to handle these upscaled Pixels.
Beside all this those Avis are for shure heavy compressed where the source artifacts will be even more visible after upscaling them.

I would recommend two choices:

a) Do encode straight from the original and keep your avi
b) Do use PARanoia or FitCD to obtain a resizing line for a correct NON-anamorph target state.

[Nikos]

Thank you Inc for your helpful reply.

One remark
With normal resize [4:3] i have upscaled Pixels
during playing.
With Anamorphic resize [16:9] i have upscaled Pixels
during encoding.

I will try both ways but i want your opinion.

[Inc]

In you case of 608x256 an upscaling will be done anyway BUT the more you upscale the more youll recognise the quality loss afterwards.

4:3 will be upscaled in only one direction finally on TV: In its width
16:9 will also be upscaled on a 16:9 TV in its width, otherwise eggheads would be kept as eggheads.

[Nikos]

I am a litle confusing :confused:
I read in the wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anamorphic_widescreen

DVD video
A similar anamorphic technique is used to store video on DVD.
DVDs using anamorphic widescreen make effective use of
the available resolution, as well as allowing a film to
automatically expand to fit widescreen television sets.
Anamorphic widescreen DVDs store a stretched picture, to
make more optimal use of vertical resolution, that is to
avoid or decrease wasted lines of resolution on the black
letterboxing bars.
Sources that are close to 16:9 can be transferred to DVD
taking up the entire 16:9 frame with no wasted space.
However, sources that are wider than 16:9, such as 1.85:1 or
2.39:1 video, must still be letterboxed into the 16:9 frame
with varying amounts of black bars.

Thanks again for your valuably information.

[foxyshadis]

Anamorphic allows authors to use effective resolutions like 1024x480 or so, that are way above dvd standard because they're horizontally stretched. But that's because they start from huge sources. If you start from a small source there is very little point in resizing; sometimes resizing up with a good resizer (lanczos, spline, or some vector-based resize) will look significantly better, but generally ONLY when you size right to the output resolution. If your tv has to resize it again, you lose some of that effect. Additionally, you weigh the sharper picture against the extra artifacts because your bits per pixel are lower.

Now, you could still encode anamorphically by resizing to 320x256 and stretch it. But I have a feeling that would look even worse. Best is probably to author it as-is and set it so the black borders on each side are tossed away on playback.

[Chainmax]

You should first find out the actual aspect ratio of your movie (Zoomplayer can do that, right?) and then use FitCD (or PARanoia I guess, I haven0t used that one yet) in order to alculate the proper resizing and addborder steps.

[Inc]

His size is 608x256

so 608/256 is 2.375:1 which lets assume that this Movie is encoded using a common avi PAR of 1:1.

PS: Could it be that this forum is currently very slow?