--sar not working?

[Octo-puss]

I just encoded one movie and the aspect ratio in the result is wrong. I am using MeGUI and since the input was 16:9 PAL, I just automatically added "--sar 64:45" to the command line.
But when I played it (using BSP), the default ratio was screwed up, while when I manually switched to 16:9, it was all good.

Any idea what's wrong? Since I found out about this parameter, all movies were encoded properly until this...

[Sharktooth]

use a real media player not that pile of crap...

[Octo-puss]

I was about to type something equally stupid/smartass-like, but no.

Instead, tell me what's real media player then and what makes BSP so bad. I've been using it for like five years and it's just perfect.

[Sharktooth]

MPC or its variant MPC-HC, Mplayer, VLC, just to name a few...
there is a whole forum dedicated to them and the difference is they "work" properly... something B(ull)S(hit)Player does not...

[Octo-puss]

With correct codecs I have yet to find anything I cannot play in all the years I used it.

So your point being?
Still waiting for reason why is is to bad.

[Sharktooth]

well, your initial post...
let me explain better not all players do the correct thing with AR signaling.
however you should use the MeGUI Clever (TM) anamorphic encoding option to encode with the correct SAR...

[Octo-puss]

Well, it's one particular movie... Ever since I discovered the --sar option, the playback is just fine.
And just for the record, MPC doesn't play everything perfect either (it's nice for some specific files, but lacks the BSP's controls comfort).

Anamorphic encoding? What's that? First time I hear about that.

edit: Oh, just found it. But I got zero idea what mod16 and other stuff means. I just know how to encode the stuff and use the few options needed, I am no video specialist :) Specific numbers is the win for me.

[Inventive Software]

By specifying the Sample Aspect Ratio (SAR) you are encoding it anamorphic. PAL DVDs are 720x576 with SAR 64:45, to make it display 1024x576.

Mod16 means the width and height are divisible by 16. It doesn't make much difference to compression, and is only useful if you encode to very strict stand-alones.

[Sharktooth]

mod 16 is required for some avisynth filters and for optimal compression.
it's always good to have a mod 16 resolution.
however, more info on that stuff is here: http://mewiki.project357.com/wiki/Guides:Basic_Guide/Video
and here: http://mewiki.project357.com/wiki/MeGUI:Glossary#Anamorphic

[Octo-puss]

mod 16 is required for some avisynth filters and for optimal compression.
it's always good to have a mod 16 resolution.
however, more info on that stuff is here: http://mewiki.project357.com/wiki/Guides:Basic_Guide/Video
and here: http://mewiki.project357.com/wiki/MeGUI:Glossary#Anamorphic

Hmm that's good, but I don't want to resize the video at all...
How is this different to setting specific SAR?

edit: one of the articles read:
"This allows for better image quality without having to upsize the image during encoding. The most common scenario for anamorphic encoding is for encoding DVDs at their full resolution."
That I do not understand.
All three options in MeGUI are somewhat confusing as they speak about resizing or even cropping of the image, which is not something I find good (as much as I don't understand the whole deal much).

[Sharktooth]

personally if find anamorphic encoding only usefull at the original source resulution.
that said, someone likes to rescale the video down and then encode anamorphically...
however, going anamorphic means: cropping the black bars (if any) and encoding using the source AR.
so, the steps are:
1- Cropping the black bars (if necessary) possibly hitting a mod16 res (overcrop if necessary)
2- Getting the source AR
3- Encoding with the source AR.
As you can see no resize at all... but you can apply a resize step instead of overcropping to mod16 (not that i suggest it!!!).
This method is used to keep the full source resolution.