Having troubles with aspect ratio resizing a film said to be 4:3 - 2.35.1

[Simplet]

After having read a lot of FAQS dealing with aspect ratio without any clue, I decided to post my question.

I'm currently trying to encode The Game (Zone 2), said to be 4/3 - 2.35.1. It's a PAL Zone 2 DVD.
DVD 2 Avi told me it's a 4/3 movie.

When I try resizing the movie, I do the following in the Resolution tab :

- manually crop by entering the right values
- smart crop all
- at this very moment, Gordian Knot tells me in the Crop section that
my Aspect Ratio is 2.499. If i change it to 2.35, my film isn't perfectly cropped anymore but the resolution I can choose are those of 2.35 movies.

Then I don't know what to do to have the right resolution sizes (corresponding to a 2.35 movie) and the right aspect ratio values with a perfectly cropped video.

Using AVSTool I have no problem finding the right resolution values for a 2.35 movie, even after resizing, but with Gk,ot it seems to be harder.
Giving a DAR of 2.35 in the Input Pixel Aspect Ratio after resizing doesn't help either.

Could someone explain me what are the right aspect ratio values for encoding, when to enter them while in the resizing stage ?

Thanks alot

[PeZzy]

I'll try to help you out with my unorthodox technique...

First off, make sure you select 'resized' in your dvd2avi preview so you can see if the output display has the wrong aspect ratio.

I do an autocrop, but since it's frequently not correct I finish cropping by manually changing the values so it's accurate.

At this stage I assume the aspect ratio listed on the DVD box is correct - I can't be bothered to measure it. On the "Input Pixel Aspect Ratio" section, I click on the "Display AR" and slowly adjust the number until the Aspect Ratio in the cropping section hits 2.35 (or whatever it's suppose to be).

After deciding on the output resolution, I occasionally increase the cropping on the sides to reduce the aspect error.

If you rely on smart cropping you could end up with bad aspect ratios on your movies.

[manono]

Simplet-Hi
As perhaps you know already, the AR given by Smart Ripper is frequently wrong, and the one on the back of the DVD box is sometimes (not often) wrong, but you're usually safe in relying on the AR given by DVD2AVI.

So, after you tick PAL and 4:3, you crop the black bars as you did. Then if you don't like what Smart Crop All does (frequently takes more off the top and bottom), then just tick Smart Crop Left-Right instead.

Both ways give you correct AR. GKnot does not screw up. By the way-did you go to Options and check Follow ITU-R BT.601 Standard? You should definitely do that if you plan on watching your movies on TV, and you might want to do it anyway. It may give you resolutions more to your liking.

[Doom9]

gknot is set to a DAR of 16:9 default.. did you change that to 4:3?