Strange Aspect Ratio

[EpheMeroN]

I was given some dvd recordings of some high school football games that were recorded on those straight-to-dvd camcorders.

The aspect ratio on the discs is 4:3 but it's entirely vertically stretched.

I played them in VLC media player, and when switching to 16:9 aspect ratio it was still not correct (at least to me visually). So I then changed it to 16:10 (which filled my widescreen laptop perfectly) and it appeared visually correct.

Is this at all common? Or was it a configuration error prior to recording from the person that gave these to me?

I need to create a script to correct the aspect ratio of these dvds, and was wondering how you would go about making them 16:10?

I will try to post some screenshots from the dvds when I get home from work!

[thewebchat]

I think, since 8/5 is closer to 16/9 than it is to 4/3, you could create a 16:9 DVD with padding on the left and right sides.

[Blue_MiSfit]

Yes, that's how I'd do it.

Post a sample M2V, and we can help you write and AviSynth script to make DVD compliant 16x9 that will look correct. NTSC I'm guessing?

~MiSfit

[EpheMeroN]

NTSC I'm guessing?

Yup!!

Post a sample M2V
Here you go: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=Q66EJM5H

[thewebchat]

I'm not entirely convinced that the aspect ratio is 8/5, but it is pretty hard to tell without knowing in advanced what things should look like. To get the right aspect ratio, I would just remux the video and set a PAR of 16/15. If you want a "standard" format, you could crop 4 from the left/right and 2 from the top/bottom, resize to 632x480, and then pad it to 720x480.

[MatLz]

(6/4)x((6/4)/(4/3))

So 27/16 (1.6875)

Maybe...

Best way is if you see a known geometric figure in your video, in front of course, like a square, a circle... The car, with normaly circle wheels in the topright is unfortunetely in perspective, the yellow thing |_| too (don't know the word sorry..) So...

[Blue_MiSfit]

Very unusual :)

I'm using the car wheel at ~ 35 seconds in as a reference.

I agree that 16x10 seems pretty close. In order to make this look correct when displayed at 16x9 we use the following script:


#Smart bob to clean up diagonals
edi=nnedi(field=-2)
yadifmod(mode=1, edeint=edi)

#Add whatever filters you want here

#Crop off the junk on the edges
crop(4,4,-4,-4)

spline36resize(640,480)
addborders(40,0,40,0)

#Re-interlace for DVD output
separatefields
selectevery(4,0,3)


Display this at 16x9, and it will look pretty good...

~MiSfit

[MadRat]

Sorry I didn't really read the thread too closely so I hope my suggestion hasn't already been made or I have the wrong idea.
Could it be that you're working with anamorphic video? Not all video has square pixels, some video has pixels that are stretched the long way and some video has pixels that are stretched the wide way; the resolution is the same but because of the shape of the pixels you can't get the image to look right. See if your video looks right if you resize it to um... uhhh... how about 640 x 480 or maybe um... 704 x 396.