AR Question

[Thunderbolt8]

I made a video out of the movie Munich, PAL in x264 with MeGUI. The movie is set to be Anamorphic Widescreen with 1 : 2,35 AR.

I used clever anamorphic encoding encode non-mode 16 to have the orginal AR with the picture and I also didnt resize or crop.
When I play the orginal DVD in dvdplayer at tv (4:3) or powerdvd at pc, then I have 2 small parts of black at each side above and below the movie window, the big dark black part and top and bottom and between that and the movie window a smaller and slightly brighter black part.
when I use mkvmerge as muxer and enter width 16 height 9 as resolution I get exactly the same AR the orginal movie is on displayed with dvdplayer at tv or powerdvd. just the 2 smaller brighter black parts have become same dark as the big part, so basically there are only 2 big dark parts of black now.
when I use the megui muxer (adaptive/mkv) (mp4box ?) I cant enter any resolution and the muxer creates a solution of 1066x576 automatically. in that case the 2 smaller slightly brighter black parts remain, but they are a tiny amount smaller as the original ones. same for the movie part. the AR of both parts compared to the orginal (black parts and movie) is the same though, meaning nothing is missing or stretched wrong, just seen on little less display space, so there must be little more black overall space then.

my question is now, when watching this on a HDTV 16:9 screen, which im planning to buy sometime later on, which of these 2 versions will display "better" or "more orginal" compared to the dvd ? will the file, which is shown with exactly the same AR and visible parts as the dvd, look on that 16:9 screen the same as the orginal dvd ? I guess when viewing the orginal dvd on such a screen the slightly brighter dark parts will disappear and the move will be somehow adjusted to that new setting, would that file be stretched in the same way ? considering the 1066x576 file, would the slightly brighter dark parts disappear then like the ones on the dvd version on that screen ? or will they just also be stretched, together with the visible parts, according to a certain ration ?

Im basically trying to come AR wise as close to the orginal as possbile, and I need to have it both working, on current screens (4:3), but also for the future on 16:9 screens.

[Skelsgard]

I used clever anamorphic encoding encode non-mode 16 to have the orginal AR with the picture and I also didnt resize or crop.
If u didn´t resize nor crop then u HAVE a mod16 size (720x576).

When I play the orginal DVD in dvdplayer at tv (4:3) or powerdvd at pc, then I have 2 small parts of black at each side above and below the movie window
Is not each side, it´s either above or below or above and below. Since u have a 2.35 movie, I guess you´re talking about the letterboxing (LB) top and bottom black bars.
So if I understand correctly u are talking on one side about these LB black bars, and on the other side about the bars that your 4:3 TV has when playing the 16:9 DVD.

when I use the megui muxer (adaptive/mkv) (mp4box ?) I cant enter any resolution

Not "resolution", but "DAR = Display Aspect Ratio" (if that´s what u meant). Don´t take this as a snob comment, is just that terminology is very important to get people to understand what u mean.

and the muxer creates a solution of 1066x576 automatically.
The muxer doesn´t create anything. It packs the x264 stream into a container, setting "flags" in that container that will be read by the splitter/decoder wich will act according to those "flags" (i use here the term "flags" very liberally). If the flag is DAR 16:9 then the decoder will know to display the video in 16:9 ratio. Or if the flag is Display Size = 1066 x 576, then the decoder will play the video at that resolution. There´s nothing automatic about this. In both cases, u have to actually voluntarily set those flags (in most muxers, the standard DAR is 1:1, and the standard Display Size is the actual size of the image).

my question is now, when watching this on a HDTV 16:9 screen, which im planning to buy sometime later on, which of these 2 versions will display "better" or "more orginal" compared to the dvd ? will the file, which is shown with exactly the same AR and visible parts as the dvd, look on that 16:9 screen the same as the orginal dvd ? I guess when viewing the orginal dvd on such a screen the slightly brighter dark parts will disappear and the move will be somehow adjusted to that new setting, would that file be stretched in the same way ? considering the 1066x576 file, would the slightly brighter dark parts disappear then like the ones on the dvd version on that screen ? or will they just also be stretched, together with the visible parts, according to a certain ration ?

I couldn´t understand a word u said there, so I´m gonna answer with a shotgun, hoping some "pellets" actually adress the question your asking.
U have 3 basic Aspect Ratios for DVD: 4:3, 16:9 and 2.35:1, and 2 DARs: 4:3 and 16:9.
Now take a 4:3 TV first.
When displaying a 4:3 DVD in a 4:3 TV, the TV screen will be "filled" with the image (no black anywhere).
When displaying a 16:9 DVD in a 4:3 TV, the screen will have 2 black bars, top and bottom, wich is a letterboxing that the DVD player adds to maintain the 16:9 AR in a 4:3 screen.
But 2.35:1 DVDs are encoded in 16:9 DAR. Therefore is the encoder side the one that will have to add bars to fill the 16:9 image. And then, when played at a 4:3 TV, it will act as a stated above: the player will add another letterboxing to maintain the 16:9 DAR.
So on 2.35 DVDs u have a letterboxing that is IN the image, and another ADDED by the player.

But on 16:9 TVs, with 16:9 DVDs, there will be no need for the player to letterbox anything, as the DAR is the same as the TV´s.
So, if u wonder how many bars u will see with a 16:9 DVD on a 16:9 TV, they will be only the ones that are already on the image.

Cheers.

[Thunderbolt8]

-I dont know if its mode 16 then or not, when I dont select any of the crop or resize options. i just clicked on that enconde non-mode 16 window, because I cant click on the rezise resolution window any more then (because I didnt want to resize). so you are basically saying, when I dont click at resize or crop at all, it doesnt matter which of the 4 clever anamorphic encoding methods I choose, the result it the same ?

-I guess thats what I mean..I cant express it in terminology that accurate. I just have 2 kinds of black bars, the bigger & darker ones and the smaller & brigher ones (probably the one you refer to as the LB bars)

-when I use the megui muxer I cant enter anything about AR or DAR at all. the only options I have are such as name, framerate, output, output file etc. So I dont know where I could enter a DAR with megui

-considering that 16:9 hdtv issue, its basically that way, when playing a anamorphic dvd with a hardware dvd player on a 16:9 tv, the tv (or player or whatever) knows then that some adjustment to that screen have to be made and some black bars are either disappearing or getting smaller etc. its information that can be read by that hardware.
but I guess its a difference then, when I only have a single video (mkv) file and Im connecting the TV to pc via tv out and use windows clone screen or something like that in display panel. then the procedure most likely doesnt invole that "recognising" of a anamorphic media file any more like with the orginal dvd in hardware player, the file is just put into the extended desktop TV screen and then displayed at full fize. and here comes the point where I'd like to know if this would look the same then (AR wise and also compared to the overall visible space on screen) ,when I play that mkv video file that way as described and when I would watch the orginal dvd via standalone dvd player.

[Skelsgard]

I dont know if its mode 16 then or not
Mod16 just means that the height and/or width is divisible by 16. 720is mod16 cause 720 / 16 = 45, 576 is mod16 cause 576 / 16 = 36, and so on.
Encoders (usually mpg encoders, either MPEG-1, 2 or 4) work better with mod16 resolutions. I.e. a 708 x 576 will compress less or not as good in filesize terms than a 720 x 576, even though 708 is smaller than 720 so the file should be smaller at 708, but as not being mod16 the compression is not as effective.


i just clicked on that enconde non-mode 16 window, because I cant click on the rezise resolution window any more then (because I didnt want to resize). so you are basically saying, when I dont click at resize or crop at all, it doesnt matter which of the 4 clever anamorphic encoding methods I choose, the result it the same ?

Basically, yes, as your source is already mod16, there´s no need to apply mod16 changes.

when I use the megui muxer I cant enter anything about AR or DAR at all. the only options I have are such as name, framerate, output, output file etc. So I dont know where I could enter a DAR with megui

If your outputting to MKV, then don´t worry about it in megui. Once the video is encoded, load it into MKVmerge (u can get MKVToolnix wich has mkvmerge and a GUI, I would recommend u to). In mkvmerge u can set the DAR in #:# format (i.e. 16:9) or even in frame size (720 x 404 or 1066 x 576 for a 16:9 DAR, or whatever size u like).

considering that 16:9 hdtv issue, its basically that way, when playing a anamorphic dvd with a hardware dvd player on a 16:9 tv, the tv (or player or whatever) knows then that some adjustment to that screen have to be made and some black bars are either disappearing or getting smaller etc. its information that can be read by that hardware.

In most cases, the 4:3 or 16:9 DAR is selected as an option in the menus of your DVD player (i´m not talking about the menus of the DVD-disc). The options are usually some like "Letterboxed" (for 16:9 DVD in a 4:3 TV), "Full Screen" (for 16:9 DVD in a 16:9 TV), "Pan&Scan" (crops the 16:9 DVD picture at both sides to achieve the maximum height and fill the entire screen of a 4:3 TV), maybe others.

but I guess its a difference then, when I only have a single video (mkv) file and Im connecting the TV to pc via tv out and use windows clone screen or something like that in display panel. then the procedure most likely doesnt invole that "recognising" of a anamorphic media file any more like with the orginal dvd in hardware player, the file is just put into the extended desktop TV screen and then displayed at full fize. and here comes the point where I'd like to know if this would look the same then (AR wise and also compared to the overall visible space on screen) ,when I play that mkv video file that way as described and when I would watch the orginal dvd via standalone dvd player.

For PC-->TV viewing compared with standalone DVD player, yes, they would look the same (a pixel more or less).
When playing form PC, and depending on the player u´re using (bsplayer, VLC, MPC, etc) u can select custom DARs to adjust the output to whatever u want.
If you plan to watch this MKV in PC-->TV, then u don´t even need to maintain anamorphic encoding. U can set the picture aspect ratio to match the intended DAR (the movie will play with the right DAR without having to set any flags anywhere).
Cheers.

[foxyshadis]

Something I don't understand: If you're going to make a long technical post, using otherwise proper spelling and grammar, no leet or txmsg to be found, why swap "you" for "u"?
"Pan&Scan"
This reminds me of something I wanted to ask a long time ago. Real movies released in 4/3 format are reframed on a frame-by-frame basis. And if my bad memory serves, DVD titles (eg, the MPG PS container) can have a per-frame flag to crop widescreen into fullscreen, right? So how do you do this with MP4/MKV, and how to transfer the information from DVD if it exists? Or am I wrong, and the only choice is hardcoded wide/full?

What would be really cool would be the ability to specify a full (4/3), wide (16/9), and cinema profile. Because while cinemaphiles don't mind letterboxing, most people prefer to have their entire TV filled.

[Skelsgard]

Something I don't understand: If you're going to make a long technical post, using otherwise proper spelling and grammar, no leet or txmsg to be found, why swap "you" for "u"?
Just because. I came accustomed to it. I just write that way on instinct.
Besides, what´s so technical about my post? :P

This reminds me of something I wanted to ask a long time ago. Real movies released in 4/3 format are reframed on a frame-by-frame basis. And if my bad memory serves, DVD titles (eg, the MPG PS container) can have a per-frame flag to crop widescreen into fullscreen, right? So how do you do this with MP4/MKV, and how to transfer the information from DVD if it exists? Or am I wrong, and the only choice is hardcoded wide/full?

I´ve never used myself the Pan&Scan feature on the encoder side, so I won´t know if it is on a per-frame flag or just an all-frames flag for simple "center image" pan&scan (allow me the expression). I do not have seen that kind of feature on MKV/MP4 or any other container for that matter (at least yet), not for per-frame nor all-frames. So I would risk to say that, yeah, the only available choice right now is hardcoded.
It´s probably most due to the fact that in a PC any DAR/P&S can be selected with one single keypress in most media players (MPC, VLC, etc.). If this sort of info is not "extractable" from the DVD itself, it would be a lot of work and take a lot of time to do a custom P&S across a standard movie (let´s say 2hs).

What would be really cool would be the ability to specify a full (4/3), wide (16/9), and cinema profile. Because while cinemaphiles don't mind letterboxing, most people prefer to have their entire TV filled.

It actually would. Maybe the day will come that we will be able to choose a custom DAR or Pan&Scan in our SAPs (but I mean REALLY custom ones). Well, dreaming doesn´t hurt :D.

This post is not too much about AVC encoding though, a little about MeGUI, but not in the big picture.