Bluray with 720p 4:3 video

[kurkosdr]

Hi there, I have a mp4 video with a resoltion of 960x720 and an aspect ratio of 4:3, which I want to make into a bluray.

Since the only 720p resolution supported in Bluray is 1280x720, does this mean I have to strech my vid to 1280x720 and then put a 4:3 AR flag in it? How do I do that?

Are 720p 4:3 videos even possible in Bluray?

Thanks.

[scharfis_brain]

just add black bars (pillarboxing) left and right.

[kurkosdr]

just add black bars (pillarboxing) left and right.
Clever solution, but such video will look really bad in 4:3 monitors.

I was hoping for something more elegant, such as setting an AR flag to 4:3 (Bluray m2ts files do support AR, right?) or something like that.

[Inspector.Gadget]

720p on Blu-ray must be 1280x720 @ 1:1 PAR. Therefore, pillarboxing is the ONLY solution that doesn't throw away some of the actual image.

[crl2007]

Clever solution, but such video will look really bad in 4:3 monitors..

Actually, adding black bars on the right and left will have no effect on 4:3 monitors, you will have fullscreen. You will only see them on 16:9 monitors.

[A.Fenderson]

Clever solution, but such video will look really bad in 4:3 monitors.

By this I'm guessing you're not playing on a BD SAP going into an HDTV, but possibly on a pc. Some software players don't allow stretching/squeezing the image, but I think using Media Player Classic--Home Cinema in full-screen with the appropriate setting to "touch window from in-/outside" might give the desired result of displaying (in full resolution) the 960x720 area inside the resulting 1280x720, BD-compliant encode--though I've never done this.

Does that sound right, anyone?

[kurkosdr]

720p on Blu-ray must be 1280x720 @ 1:1 PAR. Therefore, pillarboxing is the ONLY solution that doesn't throw away some of the actual image.
Ouch! I find it hard to believe "global standards" like Bluray don't support AR signaling for some of their resolutions. Or that they don't support 4:3 for 720p resolutions (960x720), but do for 1080p resolutions (1440x1080).

Does Blu-Ray support AR signaling at all? Say I have a 720x576 video at 16:9 which I want to make into bluray. Also out of luck?

Anyway, since pillarboxing will play horribly on on most pc media players (in their default settings), I 'll just covert it to 1440x1080, with all the rencoding and resizing it requires.

PS: At least I hope Bluray does have AR singaling for 720x576...

[A.Fenderson]

Ouch! I find it hard to believe "global standards" like Bluray don't support AR signaling for some of their resolutions. Or that they don't support 4:3 for 720p resolutions (960x720), but do for 1080p resolutions (1440x1080).

Does Blu-Ray support AR signaling at all? Say I have a 720x576 video at 16:9 which I want to make into bluray. Also out of luck?

Anyway, since pillarboxing will play horribly on on most pc media players (in their default settings), I 'll just covert it to 1440x1080, with all the rencoding and resizing it requires.

PS: At least I hope Bluray does have AR singaling for 720x576...

Wikipedia has almost all the answers to the above questions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc#Technical_specifications)--and in this particular case, I believe they're additionally accurate. ;-)

Note:
BD only allows 4:3 AR in SD resolutions (720x480, 720x576)--1440x1080 is 16:9 anamorphic only, so not sure this would be an advisable resolution for your encode.

[Inspector.Gadget]

Anyway, since pillarboxing will play horribly on on most pc media players (in their default settings)

What do you mean? Everything will be displayed at 1:1 PAR as encoded. The pillarboxes will occupy the left and right sides, sure, but that's the price you pay for requring Blu-ray compliance. IMO that's better than a distorted picture or a lower-quality upscaled image. BTW, if your focus is on PC media players, why do you care about making a Blu-ray disc as opposed to using a container like Matroska?

[Perepandel]

IMO that's better than a distorted picture or a lower-quality upscaled image


You got it wrong. If Blu-ray allowed for a 4:3 AR flag, then no "lower-quality upscaled image" or "distorted picture" would exist. The player would know that it should add the black pillars "on the fly" just to fill the available empty space from 960 to 1280, so no need for any scaling nor distorsions, and also you wouldn't waste space on disk/file by unnecessarily encoding those stupid vertical bars across the entire feature.

[Gser]

I suppose you could just encode it as 16:9 and then adjust the aspect ratio on the pc player or television when playing. You could try to signal 4:3 in the file, maybe you will get lucky with some devices and players.

[Ghitulescu]

I would not use 4:3 monitors with blurays - mainly because none of them to my knowledge has HDMI IN :)
Only computer monitors may be 4:3 and have a digital input (DVI/DisplayPort/HDMI) but this is probably not the reason why one would make a bluray :) :)

4:3 was kept in BD for one historical reason, to allow one generation of compatibility, so that people with DVD-like personal archive migrate to BD without loosing their irreplaceable family treasure, and companies to be able to put space-saving media on BD (interviews etc.). BD was supposed to be 16:9.

In short: if you want to watch them on a computer just leave them as they are, if intended for TV, then you have to do them properly in 16:9. 720 was not intended to be 4:3 anyway.