Converting from LB 4:3 to 16:9 problem

[Smoker25]

I've used this option many times with non-anamorphic DVDs which have 1.85 or 2.35 aspect ratios, but yesterday I tried rebuilding a DVD with a ratio of 1.66 and it didn't work out. The DVD in question is Bound By Honor (Blood In Blood Out) R1 which is 1.66:1 non-anamorphic. The problem is that instead of adding black bars to the sides, as it should be with 1.66, DVD Rebuilder simply cropped a little off the top and bottom and turned it into 1.85. What can I do?

[jdobbs]

DVD-RB doesn't know how it is encapsulated -- it would have to do some heavy-duty picture analysis to come to that conclusion. When you use this option, it makes the assumption you want to convert from 4:3 to 16:9... and that requires a fixed removal amount from top and bottom.

You could do the conversion manually using the filter editor.

[Smoker25]

OK, thanks for your help!

[Das Achteck]

Conversion from 4:3 to 16:9 works well for AR => 1.78, but for lesser values it results in what the OP describes. But Filter Editor? The help file tells me:

Filter Editor
This is meant to support filters, but can also be used to activate other AviSynth commands. This is truly an EXPERT OPTION. If you are not intimately familiar with AviSynth leave it alone. It can make your encodes fail completely if incorrectly used.

Since I am certainly not intimately (or even remotely) familiar with AviSynth I think I had best heed your warning.

But I can easily turn off one click mode, run the prepare phase, use my text editor to change the LanczosResize parameters in the AVS files and then continue. But only if I know what values to use.

For a 1.66 AR, which is not uncommon, what should the change be for PAL from LanczosResize(720,288,0,36,720,216) and for NTSC from LanczosResize (720,240,0,30,720,180)? The goal is a pillarboxed picture with the screen filled vertically without cropping.

[jdobbs]

I'm not sure I understand what you are asking? In DVD there are only two supported aspect ratios, 4:3 and 16:9. All other aspect ratios are padded with borders into one of those two. So if you have a 1.66 AR, and it was already held in a 16:9 original with borders, there is nothing to do. If it was originally in 4:3, using the standard 4:3 -> 16:9 routines would do the conversion correctly.

[Das Achteck]

The movie itself has an AR of 1.66. These 1.66 movies in a 4:3 format appear (at least on my gear) not as pillar boxed or letter boxed but as both, a postage stamp. The only way they can be displayed other than postage stamped on a 16:9 TV is to send them from my DVD player in 480i or 480p and use the TV's formatting control to get the best picture. That happens to be one that is close, with what appears to be a 1.66 picture with thin pillars but some cropping at the top and bottom.

Close, but no cigar. As it happens I have one foreign movie with hard subs and they are partially cropped, unless I am content to watch the postage stamp picture.

I'm certainly not smart enough to do this on my own. But it seems to me that by changing the parameters that DVDRebuilder puts in the AVS files the desired result could be obtained. I just don't know what those changes should be.

[manono]

A 1.66:1 4:3 DVD at 720x480 will look something like this:

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t308/Tommydan1/1.jpg

A 1.66:1 16:9 DVD at 720x480 will look something like this:

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t308/Tommydan1/2.jpg

If you crop the correct amount off of the 4:3 version, as Das Achteck says it crops too much - crops into the active video and converts it to 1.78:1 or so. To properly convert it to 16:9, the correct amount has to be cropped, it has to be resized, and then borders have to be added to the right and left sides. There's no reason to expect DVD-Rebuilder to be able to do this.

Das Achteck will have to figure the correct amount to crop himself and then add the information into the filter editor. One such script might go something like this:

Crop(0,48,0,-48) #if those are the correct crop values
Lanczos4Resize(656,480)
AddBorders(32,0,32,0)

I did this for NTSC. Adjust if for PAL. And while there's something to be gained by making a 1.66:1 movie as 16:9 as compared to doing it for 4:3, it's only about half the resolution improvement you'd get if the movie were 1.78:1 or wider to begin with.

[jdobbs]

DVD Rebuilder in 4:3->16:9 conversion will crop a little more than the previous black border off the top and bottom and give you 16:9 output. So the left/right borders won't be there.

[Das Achteck]

Thanks manono, I'll give that a try. The trick then is to select the proper crop and border values. Is there some rule about making them a multiple of powers of 2?

[Video Dude]

From Avisynth.org:


In order to preserve the data structure of the different colorspaces, the following mods should be used. You will not get an error message if they are not obeyed, but it may create strange artifacts. For a complete discussion on this, see DataStorageInAviSynth ...

In RGB: width no restriction height no restriction if video is progressive height mod-2 if video is interlaced

In YUY2: width mod-2 height no restriction if video is progressive height mod-2 if video is interlaced

In YV12: width mod-2 height mod-2 if video is progressive height mod-4 if video is interlaced

[Das Achteck]

Here is how I ended up getting what I was after from the 1.66 AR, 4:3 postage stamp, interlaced DVD5.

In FitCD I entered 48 in the top and bottom crop boxes, 0 for the left and right and set crop for accurate. The only box checked was Anamorphic for the destination and I set Overscan to 0. That combo gave me 656x480, 1.6611 AR. Beautiful.

In DVD-RB I turned off One Click Mode, turned on Force Reencoding and turned off Bitrate Redistribution. I'm not sure both of these last two are needed but at least Force Reencoding was when I was using my own filter. Then in the AVS Expert Options, I checked Convert from LB 4:3 to 16:9 to assure that DVD-RB set all the necessary parameters; I did not use the filter editor. I also checked Deinterlace which may not be necessary; I could let the TV do it but what the heck, the script is simpler.

After running the Prepare phase I did a batch edit of the *.AVS files, replacing
LanczosResize(720,480,0,60,720,360)
with the FitCD script
LanczosResize(656,480,0,48,720,384)
AddBorders(32,0,32,0)
and continued on.

The result was, to my eye, perfect. Thanks for the guidance; your crop values were spot on.

[manono]

You're welcome. Given your name, I figured you'd be working with a PAL DVD and my script example would be useless to you.