Backup of my dvd but wrong aspect ratio help

[MeridiusUK]

Hi All

I am trying to backup my dvd collection to a media centre but i am having problems with a couple of the dvds that i have which are pal.

When i use makemkv the aspect ratio is wrong it squashes the top and bottem so it has black bars at the top and bottem but this dvd is full screen and should not have black bars at all.

i have even tred to rip it to video ts dir and thats the same as well by using a different program.

If i play the movie in my dvd player it keeps the right aspect ratio fills the whole screen no black bars but when i come to rip it it does not fill the screen and you can tell by the picture that its squashed into the centre.

i have not come across this at all with 99% of my dvds its only a couple that have done this and i can not understand why ?

even the vobs on the pcs do this

can anyone help me on the reason this would do that and is there a way to fix it.

the res is right when i checked the vob it says 720x576 16:9 so i dont know whats wrong here

oh the dvds are csi season 1 to 4 that will not work right and then season 5 to 8 are the right aspect ratio so somthings up with season 1 to 4

thanks for any help

[stax76]

In very rare cases the 16:9 info is only in the IFO file but not in the VOB files, StaxRip checks the IFO file but since such DVDs are extremely rare many other applications don't.

[MeridiusUK]

so would i need to use StaxRip to rip these dvds right ?

just looked at stackrip and its a compressor dont want to compress the dvds as i want them at full quality

[Inspector.Gadget]

Use mkvmergeGUI's header editor on the file created by MakeMKV to change the video stream's "Video pixel width" and "Video pixel height" attributes to the correct PAL pixel aspect ratio OR to change "Video display width" and "Video display height" to the correct values for either a 4:3 or 16:9 PAL frame.

[stax76]

so would i need to use StaxRip to rip these dvds right ?

Other tools might not detect it properly but still allow you to set it manually.

[Ghitulescu]

Hi All

I am trying to backup my dvd collection to a media centre but i am having problems with a couple of the dvds that i have which are pal.

When i use makemkv the aspect ratio is wrong it squashes the top and bottem so it has black bars at the top and bottem but this dvd is full screen and should not have black bars at all.

i have even tred to rip it to video ts dir and thats the same as well by using a different program.

If i play the movie in my dvd player it keeps the right aspect ratio fills the whole screen no black bars but when i come to rip it it does not fill the screen and you can tell by the picture that its squashed into the centre.

i have not come across this at all with 99% of my dvds its only a couple that have done this and i can not understand why ?

even the vobs on the pcs do this

can anyone help me on the reason this would do that and is there a way to fix it.

the res is right when i checked the vob it says 720x576 16:9 so i dont know whats wrong here

oh the dvds are csi season 1 to 4 that will not work right and then season 5 to 8 are the right aspect ratio so somthings up with season 1 to 4

thanks for any help

This is what I understood from your post (lots of imagination used here):
You have a PAL DVD that is as usual 720x576 (deducted), all pixels filled with the actual image (deducted, might be wrong depending on TV set and DVD players' settings), said image being 4:3 (same comment as above).

You have a PAL DVD player that plays the video perfectly on your TV (I assume here a 4:3 TV, info missing).

You rip it and end with some distorted DAR. You didn't tell us what player have you used, as this is very important.

If what stax76 said is true, then these applications are defective, as the hardware DVD player should consider the DAR from the IFO and not from the VOB. So should the software ripper consider, too.

However, I've seen myself some British 16:9 movies that contain a 2.35:1 film, which played extremely distorted in VLC, yet perfectly on a HW DVD player. Since I watch DVDs only on my DVD player I didn't care and bother to investigate. Maybe this is your case.

As you can see, there were lots of assumptions to fill in the missing data. Next time be more specific.

[stax76]

@Ghitulescu

Was it a BBC DVD? IIRC BBC DVD North & South was the only DVD I saw it.

[Ghitulescu]

Was it a BBC DVD?

A BBC DVD I assume is a DVD issued by BBC. But what has this to do with me?

If you refer back to my British DVDs, well, they are Hammer Studios, you know, Christopher Lee and stuff.

[MeridiusUK]

My Tv is a Widscreen 50" plasma using a ps3 for movie playback

The DVD is PAL 720x576, When i play the movie using the dvd player it plays full screen no black bars at all the picture fills the screen as its not like many of movies that have black bars at teh top and bottom.

When i rip the DVD uisng Makemkv and play the episode back it now has black bars at the top and bottom and you can tell the picture is squashed in the centre, meaning that the black bars should not be there at all this happens on playback in the ps3 and windows media player in windows 7. the problem is i use my ps3 to play stuff back.

also if i just rip the VOBs they dont playback properly either so its got nothing to do with the rip using makemkv as ithought it might of been.

for some reason the picture is getting squashed and not playing in full screen format.

now i have many rips that i have done and all play back perfect with no problems it just seems to be csi season 1 to 4 that has this problem.

hope this helps

[Ghitulescu]

Still a lot of data need to be filled in.
I assume you have a perfect 16:9 movie (very rare, as generally they are more likely to be 1.85:1 or 2.35:2; to be sure I remember you that pure 16:9 is 1.78:1, so you'll end with black bars top and bottom).
I assume the same happens when you play that DVD with the PS3. Because if it isn't, then you simply need to check the setting of your player and/or TV.

However some pictures of what happens might help, your inability to use proper punctuation makes the whole thing a bit difficult to understand.

[MeridiusUK]

heres the first image which it looks like when playing from the DVD on the computer and ps3 and any other dvd player

http://img72.imageshack.us/f/89720.jpg/

link for pic http://img72.imageshack.us/f/89720.jpg/

Heres the ripped dvd using makemkv or using a tool that just rips the VOB files and when i play it on my ps3 or the PC it looks like this

http://img375.imageshack.us/f/897202.jpg/

link for pic http://img375.imageshack.us/f/897202.jpg/


as you can see the picture is squashed and has black bars which it should not have. The first picture it fills my tv screen when playing from dvd. The 2nd picture is when i rip it and play it back from a single file the vob file or the mkv file that contains the single mpeg file.

I have riped many dvds for my media server from my collection and these are the firs tdvds that have done this all other single mkvs or Vobs that i have riped play in there righta spect ratio.

hope the pictures help

[Emulgator]

Now the guesswork without actually having a stream to check..
First scenario: Widescreen movie encoded letterboxed and pillarboxed as 4:3. AND SourcePicture letterboxed flag set.
If connected to a 16:9 display and set properly, a HW player will stretch this footage in width and height
to match the picture to a 16:9 monitor.
Some ripping tools may not recognise this rarely used flag. Most of authoring software doesn't allow to set this neither.
(I was involved a bit in introducing this properly into DVDLabPro)

Second scenario, less probable: Maybe encoded with DAR 2.21:1 set ? HCEnc can do this.
This is possible, but not DVD-compliant and so not necessarily respected by a HW player,
because the player is only required to handle resizing for 16:9 and 4:3 displays.
I have not tested such encodes yet, but will do immediately.

You may still rip the vobs into elementaries, index the video using DGIndex
and watch it using a Avisynth script fed into VirtualDub. Then you can tell.
Or throw a .vob onto mediainfo.

DVDPatcher and/or ReStream may then help to fix the result.

[Emulgator]

Just checked what DVDLab, MPC and PowerDVD 7.3 would do with a HCEnc 2,21:1 encode:

DLP imports this .m2v with a non-compliancy warning, but muxes successfully.

Mediainfo reports 2,2:1 for the muxed vob.

MPC plays the vob stretched as 2,2:1.
MPC plays the DVD folder without additional letter/pillarboxing in a 4:3 window.

PowerDVD plays the DVD folder as follows:
Opens a 16:9 screen, displays the (normally to be displayed as 16:9) picture content as 4:3
and pillarboxes with additional black up to fill the 16:9 window.
The vob alone is handled the same by PDVD.

So a nice mix-up.

[MeridiusUK]

so what do i need to do ? to correct this

[Emulgator]

I would need a short sample to be sure.

[Ghitulescu]

I'm afraid I still have a problem to understand the pictures you posted.

They are not photographs of the TV screen, they are screenshots. As I said before, the ability of some software players to correctly display a file was proved here several times. From the damn small resolution (400x230) it is hard to see whether, as emulgator said, the image is 4:3LB (and corectly zoomed in by the TV/player) or any other form of widescreen.

[Emulgator]

BTW, here i have uploaded a tool for trimming a short sample (800 blocks of start or end) of a VOB for evaluation purposes :
http://dvd-manufactur.de/files/VOB_Cutting_Tool.exe
IFOs would help too, but you can interpret these as well yourself using IFOEdit.

[MeridiusUK]

BTW, here i have uploaded a tool for trimming a short sample (800 blocks of start or end) of a VOB for evaluation purposes :
http://dvd-manufactur.de/files/VOB_Cutting_Tool.exe
IFOs would help too, but you can interpret these as well yourself using IFOEdit.

thanks will get the samples uploaded to use soon as i can

where will i upload the sample

[manono]

It seems fairly obvious to me what the problem is here. The IFOs are 16:9 and the DVD plays properly. The VOB files, on the other hand, were encoded as 4:3. This is rare but it happens, Since most all DVD players get the DAR from the IFOs, it plays properly in the DVD player. Inspector.Gadget and stax76 already explained the problem three days ago and Inspector.Gadget gave the solution.

[Emulgator]

Upload to whatever you find.
mediafire is used here often.

[MeridiusUK]

It seems fairly obvious to me what the problem is here. The IFOs are 16:9 and the DVD plays properly. The VOB files, on the other hand, were encoded as 4:3. This is rare but it happens, Since most all DVD players get the DAR from the IFOs, it plays properly in the DVD player. Inspector.Gadget and stax76 already explained the problem three days ago and Inspector.Gadget gave the solution.

Tried all of that and did not work.

what i did find is that if i use handbrake and compress say 2 min of film it works ? it has the right aspect ratio.

handbrake says this

Source 720 x 576 Aspect ratio 1.78
and handbrake compress it to 1024 x 576

the problem is in mkvmerge its does not have a 1.78 option and also if i change the res to 1024 x 576 16:9 and play it back its still is in 720 x 576 it does not change the res for some reason mkv merge will not change the res to 1024x576

i need somthing that will change this to 1.78 or 1024x576 to keep the right aspect ratio i think

i am using mkmerge 4.2.0

cheers

[Ghitulescu]

You have been 3 times asked to put a sample instead of words. I'm out.

[MeridiusUK]

ok heres the link to the sample files

http://www.mediafire.com/?dk7m7w5je8c6e35

http://www.mediafire.com/?c2w73kp6aqxgg1i

and the info file

http://www.mediafire.com/?5izfqgp0d757vcu

sorry about that forgot about uploading the samples hope this helps

[manono]

Well, I was wrong. Even the VOBs are 16:9. So much for that theory. I can't help with MKVMerge as I don't use it and will happily turn it over to the others. I apologize for wasting your time.

[MeridiusUK]

cheers for trying to help, yep its a wierd one hope somone can figure it out.

[stax76]

mmg detects it as AVC but it's MPEG-2 so there are obviously some bugs, fortunately the mmg developer provides unlike a couple of other programmers great support, you might not have to wait long getting the bugs fixed. Unfortunately I couldn't keep track of what exactly you are trying to achieve due to your poor English and descriptions.

[MeridiusUK]

i am trying to rip the dvd in the right aspect ratio as from the samples i posted they are not playing right on the ps3 or windows media player in the right aspect ratio as its looks squashed on a widescreen 1080p tv with black bars at the top and bottem.

if i play the dvd it playes them full screen and fills the 1080p with no black bars from the dvd this is on the ps3. I can not understand why the rip does not keep teh right aspect ratio as all my other backups are fine.

also i rip my dvds with makemkv and when i use mmg it detects it as a mpeg-2 but stil can not change the res, the samples i posted are from a vob files

[stax76]

It's still difficult to understand, I try to summarize: you want to convert a DVD to MKV without re-encoding and play the MKV on the PS3, it works with MakeMKV with most DVDs but with a few the PS3 don't show a proper aspect ratio. PC players show however a proper aspect ratio. You can try to experiment with the aspect ratio settings in mmg, if this works for PC players and not for the PS3 then it's a PS3 problem, I don't have much clue about the PS3, why don't you just re-encode those few DVDs? You should really try to write more understandable posts!

[MeridiusUK]

the aspect ratio is not right on a pc if you use windows media player, also have tried mmg and it does not matter what settings you do it never changes the res or aspect ratio when you resave the file as it still says 720x576 as i have tried to change it.

ps3 = does not work
windows media player = does not work right
VLC player = works
XBMC = Works

i can not understand why all my other dvds are fine apart form the odd few ?

also i do not want to re-encode as it degrades the quality of the picture as i want it the best i can.

[stax76]

the aspect ratio is not right on a pc if you use windows media player

Could be a filter Problem, it's better to use a DirectShow player giving control of the filter graph, popular DirectShow players are MPC-HC and PotPlayer.

also have tried mmg and it does not matter what settings you do it never changes the res or aspect ratio when you resave the file as it still says 720x576 as i have tried to change it.

It should make a difference with a good software player, did you try different players?

Since some software players work it's rather likely the problem is bugs in the players where it don't work, it's simple like that, maybe you have a chance to work around the issue, for instance the aspect ratio can be stored in the container and in the codec bit stream, I don't know technical details here nor do I have a PS3 so from my side, sorry I can't help you, I hope somebody else can.

[Emulgator]

There it is. MediaInfo sees the .VOB as 2.35:1. Not DVD-compliant.
PAL 720x576x25i, Interlaced, TFF
The source has no black letterbox bars encoded.
Just a flagging thing ? Like a multiplication.
4:3*4:3=16:9.
16:9*4:3=64/27=2.37:1 ?

But where ?
DVDLabPro2, DGIndex VideoReDo and GSpot see the .VOB and the .m2v as 16:9.
MPC plays it as 16:9.
ReStream sees the demuxed .m2v stream flagged as 16:9.
DVDPatcher sees the VOB stream flagged as 16:9.
What does MediaInfo know that the others don't ?

DLP's MPEG parser reads Aspect 3 in the First Found Sequence Header, so 16:9.
SequenceDisplayExtension reads display_horizontal_size=540. (!)
There may be the culprit. 720/540=4:3 and there it is: additional 4:3 stretching.

The VTS_04_0.IFO specifies 4:3 aspect ratio.
This means this 4:3 is to be applied for VTS_04.
Do the VOB clips stem from VTS_04 ?

I did one thing and I don't know if it will help:

If you need to keep VOBs and do not want to demux/remux:

Open DVDPatcher.
Reflagging display_horizontal_size is not implemented here.
But you can reflag AR for Entire file to 4:3.

Now MediaInfo reads the vob as 16:9 here.
The others (DGIndex: 4:3; DLP: aspect=2) do read this VOB as 4:3 now.

If you can afford to demux/remux
(this being the better approach, because here the correct flag is changed):
Open ReStream. (ReStream can only handle elementary MPEG2, VOBs are not implemented)
Reflag Sequence Display Extension -> change Horizontal Size: 720
Now MediaInfo reads the .m2v as 16:9 here.
Remux.

[SeeMoreDigital]

ok heres the link to the sample files

http://www.mediafire.com/?dk7m7w5je8c6e35

http://www.mediafire.com/?c2w73kp6aqxgg1i
When you look at the "de-muxed" MPEG-2 video stream you will find that their "horizontal" display width is flagged as being 540 pixels instead of 720 pixels.

Using the wrong "horizontal" display width can confuse some software decoders. It's less of a problem with hardware decoders though ;)

[MeridiusUK]

There it is. MediaInfo sees the .VOB as 2.35:1. Not DVD-compliant.
PAL 720x576x25i, Interlaced, TFF
The source has no black letterbox bars encoded.
Just a flagging thing ? Like a multiplication.
4:3*4:3=16:9.
16:9*4:3=64/27=2.37:1 ?

But where ?
DVDLabPro2, DGIndex VideoReDo and GSpot see the .VOB and the .m2v as 16:9.
MPC plays it as 16:9.
ReStream sees the demuxed .m2v stream flagged as 16:9.
DVDPatcher sees the VOB stream flagged as 16:9.
What does MediaInfo know that the others don't ?

DLP's MPEG parser reads Aspect 3 in the First Found Sequence Header, so 16:9.
SequenceDisplayExtension reads display_horizontal_size=540. (!)
There may be the culprit. 720/540=4:3 and there it is: additional 4:3 stretching.

The VTS_04_0.IFO specifies 4:3 aspect ratio.
This means this 4:3 is to be applied for VTS_04.
Do the VOB clips stem from VTS_04 ?

I did one thing and I don't know if it will help:

If you need to keep VOBs and do not want to demux/remux:

Open DVDPatcher.
Reflagging display_horizontal_size is not implemented here.
But you can reflag AR for Entire file to 4:3.

Now MediaInfo reads the vob as 16:9 here.
The others (DGIndex: 4:3; DLP: aspect=2) do read this VOB as 4:3 now.

If you can afford to demux/remux
(this being the better approach, because here the correct flag is changed):
Open ReStream. (ReStream can only handle elementary MPEG2, VOBs are not implemented)
Reflag Sequence Display Extension -> change Horizontal Size: 720
Now MediaInfo reads the .m2v as 16:9 here.
Remux.

cheers,

heres what i did

I ripped the episode with makemlv then i used tsmuxer to demux the audio and video which created files called .mpv and .ac3

I used restream to fix the 576 to 720 then i used mkvmerge to drop the video file back into the orig mkv file which then i unselected the old mpeg video file then selected the new video file then remuxed it.

the problem is that mkvmerge says

Warning: Found one or more B frames without second reference in the first GOP. You may want to fix the MPEG2 video stream or use smart reencode before attempting to multiplex it.

so am i doing somthing wroung ? or is there another option i need to select to fix this

thanks

[mpucoder]

The LA clip looks correct to me at 16:9, but the SA clip is incorrectly flagged as 16:9 PanScan when it looks like 4:3. The Sequence_Display_Extension width of 540 is the way PanScan is signalled.
Don't change the height (or width) of the stream, it is correct. But change the AR to 4:3, and remove the Sequence_Display_Extension.

[SeeMoreDigital]

but the SA clip is incorrectly flagged as 16:9 PanScan when it looks like 4:3. All 720x576 pixels are active and when played in hardware the image is correctly displayed at 16:9...

MeridiusUK,

What do you want your finished file format/container output to be?

[stax76]

He wants MPEG-2 MKV to play on PS3.

[MeridiusUK]

The LA clip looks correct to me at 16:9, but the SA clip is incorrectly flagged as 16:9 PanScan when it looks like 4:3. The Sequence_Display_Extension width of 540 is the way PanScan is signalled.
Don't change the height (or width) of the stream, it is correct. But change the AR to 4:3, and remove the Sequence_Display_Extension.

did not work mate as it now has black bars on the sides

[MeridiusUK]

all my dvd rips are mkvs and play fine apart from this one, so want to keep them as mkvs but it also does not play right in windows media player

[SeeMoreDigital]

He wants MPEG-2 MKV to play on PS3.Can't a PS3 play DVD.ISO files?

[MeridiusUK]

this seems to work

If you can afford to demux/remux
(this being the better approach, because here the correct flag is changed):
Open ReStream. (ReStream can only handle elementary MPEG2, VOBs are not implemented)
Reflag Sequence Display Extension -> change Horizontal Size: 720
Now MediaInfo reads the .m2v as 16:9 here.
Remux.

and keeps the right aspect ratio now but i get this error

Warning: Found one or more B frames without second reference in the first GOP. You may want to fix the MPEG2 video stream or use smart reencode before attempting to multiplex it.

when muxing back the file using mkvmerge.

just tried this keeping the Reflag Sequence Display Extension -> change Horizontal Size: 576
and changing the Sequence_Display_Extension to remove and that worked to kept the right aspect ratio

but still the Warning: Found one or more B frames without second reference in the first GOP. You may want to fix the MPEG2 video stream or use smart reencode before attempting to multiplex it. problem

[mpucoder]

@SMD - you are correct.

Now I'm as confused as the rest. I first viewed the clip in Win7's media player and saw it squashed, leading me to think it was flagged wrongly as 16:9. But then I loaded it into MuxMan (after trimming off 185 packs so as to start at a NAV pack) and it was displayed at the correct AR, but as a letterboxed AND PanScanned image (the way I sometimes see programs on DTV).

For some reason I can't get this to demux, so I can't run ReStream on it, but it looks like removing the Sequence_Display_Extension should turn this into a normal 16:9 clip.

(the jaggies in the screencap are caused by the horrible GDI resizer on this PC)

[SeeMoreDigital]

For some reason I can't get this to demux, so I can't run ReStream on it, but it looks like removing the Sequence_Display_Extension should turn this into a normal 16:9 clip.

I used DGMPGIndex v1.5.8... to obtain this 720x576 image: -

http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/604/test95.jpg

Cheers

[Ghitulescu]

Unlike VLC, SMplayer (GUI to Mplayer) under windows also showed correctly both VOBs. Actually it never had any problems with any similar DVDs/VOBs. Disregarding/disabling SDE (P&S info) is probably the way to go.

[MeridiusUK]

Cheers what about the error I am getting when mixing the files back with mmg

[Emulgator]

Ignore ?

[MeridiusUK]

sorry ? do you mean just dont worrie about the error. what is the error anyway ?

thanks

[MeridiusUK]

Anyone ? Before I start to rip these

[Ghitulescu]

What is mmg (multi media garbage? ;)) and what error message did you get?
Try not to "SMS" the explanations, remember, some people here are not native English speakers ...

PS: have you checked whether Ignore (the suggestion from Emulgator) worked or not?

[stax76]

mmg.exe -> mkvmerge GUI

[MeridiusUK]

I don't know which program u mean to use ignore on mkvmerge or Resteam ?

I can merge the files back but I thought this error would cause some sort of problems

using mkvmerge to mix them back together I get

Warning: Found one or more B frames without second reference in the first GOP. You may want to fix the MPEG2 video stream or use smart reencode before attempting to multiplex it.