Why is anamorph ratio BIGGER than source and output? [Archive]

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Moppelkotze

6th May 2016, 01:47

I thought anamorphic is used to save space on a DVD and it is squished and will be stretched upon playback.

I have a file from a PVR that has the following, see picture. How come source and outcome are same and anamorph is so much bigger?

Also, when I play the Video in Quicktime or iTunes it defaults to the anamorph values as "current size" (last line in Quicktime) and "videosize" (iTunes, whatever "videosize" is).

VLC shows values analog to the source/output although the playing window defaults to 1024x...

file https://www.dropbox.com/s/4cyfcyheh8uw04l/SD%20test.ts?dl=0

screenshots:
- 1+2 from Handbrake
- 3+4 mediainfo
- 5 Quicktime

Asmodian

6th May 2016, 09:07

That is normal anamorphic, exactly as you thought anamorphic worked. Those tools are telling you that the video is 720x576 but the pixels are 64:45 so the 'native' display resolution on a square pixel display is 1024x576.

If you get 720x576 when you play it your player is not respecting the aspect ratio flag.

edit: The reason Handbrake's output is 720x406 is because that is the other way to scale anamorphic video to square pixels, instead of scaling the 64 to 45 you scale the 45 to 64. ;)

Scaling to a lower number of pixels results in a smaller file compared to using 1024x576 but I prefer leaving the video anamorphic. Oddly Quicktime gets the display resolution wrong, they are using the aspect ratio as if it was 704x576 = 16:9.

Moppelkotze

22nd June 2016, 23:42

I am still not confident to wether to use anamorphic strict or loose, in order to not resize and maybe save space and make the media compatible with every device (square vs rectangular pixels). Re Handbrake. files saved to HDD (not DVD).

hello_hello

23rd June 2016, 00:37

Anamorphic strict and anamorphic loose are both anamorphic. Did you describe them incorrectly in your post?

Anamorphic strict prevents resizing. After cropping (assuming there's cropping) the remaining video is encoded "as-is" and resized on playback.
Anamorphic loose allows some resizing when encoding but it's still anamorphic. The idea might be to take a 720x576 video, crop a couple of pixels from the bottom for 720x574, then resize it back to 720x576 and encoding it anamorphically. You can resize more than that but the more you resize the less point there is to encoding anamorphiocally.
The difference between the two is anamorphic "strict" doesn't change the pixel aspect ratio, whereas for "loose" it'll be adjusted as required so the picture isn't distorted. For my previous example it will no longer display at exactly 16:9 as a couple of pixels of picture were removed, but objects within the picture itself should be the same shape on playback regardless of the anamorphic method.

Unless it'll all been changed for the latest Handbrake (which I doubt) anamorphic "none" is the non-anamorphic, resize to square pixels option. Previous versions of Handbrake wouldn't let you increase the width or height, so 720x576 (16:9) had to be resized to square pixels by reducing the height for 720x404 or thereabouts. I believe newer versions of Handbrake will allow you to resize "up" so you can resize to 1024x576. Vidcoder has resized "up" for a long time.

Probably the highest quality method would be anamorphic strict, although I'd adjust the cropping manually if need be to ensure width and height are evenly divisible by four (mod4). In theory the highest quality square pixel resize would be to stretch the width without resizing the height. ie 720x576 resized to 1024x576. If some black is cropped top and bottom.... a total of 24 pixels as an example.... you'd be left with 720x552 and resize to 1024x552.

Which you'd use might depend on personal choice and whether your player supports anamorphic MKVs/MP4s. The media players built into the TVs here don't so I resize to square pixels myself. Then again, I tend to resize PAL to the lowest resolution possible without a noticeable loss of picture detail, even if that means resizing the height a little. I use 960x540 quite a bit for 16:9 PAL.

Motenai Yoda

25th June 2016, 12:58

Anamorphic loose allows some resizing when encoding but it's still anamorphic. The idea might be to take a 720x576 video, crop a couple of pixels from the bottom for 720x574, then resize it back to 720x576 and encoding it anamorphically.

Nope "loose" mode will upscale to 720xBBB on default settings, so if you crop to 714x576 you'll get 720x580, and Handbrake put original aspect ratio anyway, don't taking into account it is cropped.

hello_hello

27th June 2016, 04:16

Nope "loose" mode will upscale to 720xBBB on default settings, so if you crop to 714x576 you'll get 720x580.

Which is similar to what I said.... which was just meant as an example of anamorphic resizing.... taking a 720x576 video and cropping two pixels from the bottom, then "upscaling" to 720x576 again. The exact resizing would depend on the chosen modulus and Handbrake only lets you control the width.

I'm using Handbrake 0.9.9.5530 but for a 720x480 16:9 video I had handy (AVC not mpeg2), when it's encoded without cropping the output is 720x480 (16:9) according to MPC-HC.

For an example similar to yours, cropping to 714x480:
mod2 = 720x484 (238:135)
mod4 = 720x484 (238:135)
mod16 = 720x480 (238:135)

...and Handbrake put original aspect ratio anyway, don't taking into account it is cropped.

It certainly seems to be taking the cropping into account when setting the aspect ratio, although the older version I'm using doesn't allow resizing "up" beyond the original width, whereas I think the newer version does.

It makes sense for 720x576 cropped to 714x576 to be resized 720x580 if the selected width is 720, as then both width and height are being resized up. If you select 714 as the width you should end up with 714x576, however the default width just happens to be 720.

If Handbrake's not setting the correct aspect ratio according to the cropping though, that's a problem.

wonkey_monkey

4th July 2016, 00:22

I thought anamorphic is used to save space on a DVD and it is squished and will be stretched upon playback.

I don't know if this helps, but it's not to save space - it's almost the opposite.

It's to increase vertical resolution. Since everything these days is 16:9 or wider, and 720x480/576 (although still not square pixels) was originally for 4:3 material, you'd be wasting all those pixels above and below the 16:9 area if you didn't make it anamorphic. Anamorphic encoding "stretches" the image vertically into this area, so when it's played back you have more vertical resolution.

This allowed broadcasters to move to widescreen while making minimal changes to their infrastructure and equipment chains, since most of it didn't care what the image looked like, only that it conformed to PAL/NTSC specs. And as a bonus, everyone could see much better it looked with those scanlines jammed closer together.

The effect was most striking on a CRT set, since it would literally draw the scanlines closer together when displaying anamorphic video.

Moppelkotze

6th July 2016, 01:07

I don't know, if I understand you, but you say vertical. Don't you mean horizontal (i.e. in width?).

When a 4:3 picture is layed on a 16:9 screen, you should get unused pixels at the left and the right, so called bookends. So you say, they stretch the 4:3 content, to use the whole space? In my opinion this would result in a circle (4:3) becoming an egg lying on the side, if you strech it to 16:9.
As far as I thought until know, Broadcasters use two techniques: a) they zoom into the 4:3-picture until the left and right boarder touch the boarders of the screen. You loose something from the upper and lower part of the original picture. b) they append bookends to the 4:3, the 4:3 becomes a 16:9 movie with black bars added to the left and right.

I think I misunderstood you or better didn't understand a word correctly. Sorry!

-------------------
back to topic: ok, anamorphic wasn't there to save space on a DVD, back then, right?
Is is in contrast only used, to fit square pixel material to rectangular pixel machines presentation, right?

Which you'd use might depend on personal choice and whether your player supports anamorphic MKVs/MP4s. The media players built into the TVs here don't so I resize to square pixels myself.
So, if the TV won't do it right (example: I record something on TV, then tranform it on PC to watch it on PC, then later put it back to the TV and play the media that was made suitable for PC, will not play correctly on TV anymore, right?). Conclusion is: I should just leave the source like it is. The PC will probably handle it correctly on its own, during playback and the TV will be happy to use the original settings.

That given, what do I have to choose then? Probably "keep aspect ratio" and "anamorphic none" and "modulus?...". The Handbrake guide seems to sugguest 2,but people here seem to prefer 4, since the numbers divide better, right?

PS: I would only use cropping, when there are odd resolution numbers that don't fit aspect ratio, I guess.

hello_hello

8th July 2016, 16:41

I think the gist if davidhorman's post is a 4:3 PAL DVD is 720x576 and displays with 4:3 aspect ratio, so if you put a 16:9 picture on it you need to add black bars top and bottom. Imagine a 16:9 picture being displayed on a 4:3 screen. It's still 720x576 and 4:3, but of the 576 height, only about 430 scanlines are picture, the rest is black top and bottom.

https://s31.postimg.org/wqkl66o23/4_3_DVD_picture_16_9.gif

Take a 4:3 DVD and display it on a 16:9 screen and you get black bars down each side (as you normally would for 4:3) but if the picture within is only 16:9 you have black bars top and bottom too.

https://s32.postimg.org/fdfcoijo5/4_3_DVD_with_16_9_picture.gif

The idea behind a 16:9 DVD is the entire 576 height can be used for picture as it's being stretched to a 16:9 aspect ratio, hence having a greater vertical resolution for a 16:9 picture.

So, if the TV won't do it right (example: I record something on TV, then tranform it on PC to watch it on PC, then later put it back to the TV and play the media that was made suitable for PC, will not play correctly on TV anymore, right?). Conclusion is: I should just leave the source like it is. The PC will probably handle it correctly on its own, during playback and the TV will be happy to use the original settings.

For the purpose of this post, all DVD video is anamorphic whether it's 4;3 or 16:9 because either way the pixels aren't square.
The "industry" uses the term "anamorphic" to distinguish 16:9 from 4:3.

I can't speak for every TV/media player, and to be honest, I haven't extensively tested my own. I know what it's media player does when it comes to mpeg4 video in an MKV or MP4 container, because that's primarily the format I use, and for those it doesn't obey the aspect ratio (it has a mode to force 16:9 but that's only good for 16:9 video).
It probably does handle some mpeg2 formats properly (displaying either 4:3 or 16:9 accordingly) as they're more "industry standard" but I'd have to check.
You probably should test your TV's media player with different anamorphic formats and codecs to see what it does before deciding on the format to use.

That given, what do I have to choose then? Probably "keep aspect ratio" and "anamorphic none" and "modulus?...". The Handbrake guide seems to sugguest 2,but people here seem to prefer 4, since the numbers divide better, right?

"Keep aspect ratio" enables the auto-resizing when resizing to square pixels. If you adjust the width, the height is automatically adjusted to match etc.
The modulus doesn't matter unless you crop or resize as if you don't, it doesn't change. DVD video is mod16 (width and height evenly divisible by 16). When resizing to square pixels, mod2 allows for the most accurate resizing as the width and height only need to be divisible by 2. Mod4 may be a little less accurate (depends on the resizing required) but for 100% compatibility, mod4 is probably best. Mind you I've never had an issue playing mod2 h264 with a media player.... I'm just saying. ;)

PS: I would only use cropping, when there are odd resolution numbers that don't fit aspect ratio, I guess.

If you don't crop, the anamorphic display problem mightn't be much of an issue. Pretty much all TVs have a 16:9 mode, so even if you encode a DVD at 720x576 and set a 16:9 aspect ratio and the player ignores it, you can tell the TV to stretch the video to fill the screen and it'll display correctly. If the picture includes black bars they remain part of the video and after stretching to 16:9 (including black bars) it'll always display correctly.

It's when you start cropping and the aspect ratio will be something other than 16:9 or 4:3 that proper anamorphic support becomes an issue, and most people here tend to crop away black bars but that's personal choice. Or you can just resize to square pixels.

Maybe have a play with this to help get your head around the whole anamorphic/resizing thing.
http://www.videohelp.com/software/Yodas-Resize-Calculator

Moppelkotze

9th July 2016, 01:17

Thank you again. I think it got clearer to me. What I get out of it as a conclusion is, that I should use strict + "keep aspect ratio" and all will be fine (as long as I don't crop and/or resize). The change from TV to PC and back will be cared for by the playback device.

However after reading the Handbrake wiki again, IF I used anamorphic, using a setting that converts 720x576 to 768x576 seems to be more desirable than converting 720x576 to 720x540, but that doesn't fit my intuition, because, when the content is saved 768x576, one would not save space without loosing something, which leads me to understand, that in this case they would go to 640x576... Well, maybe not, forget it. I should forget this and just remember: "keep aspect ratio" + strict (result: anamorphic 768) and ignore the rest. :o

Regarding what davidhorman said and fits to your second picture, I found "hard letter boxing", here https://trac.handbrake.fr/wiki/AnamorphicGuide#non-anamorphic

(I read the wiki again, too, before I read your post).

Reading it several times helps making it clearer :) (obviously), together with your additional explanations.

Thank you all again.

I found something interesting, which doesn't directly have to do with what we talked about here, but somewhat in a different way. At least I found it interesting (and I like the decision they made) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQtWeor58rU&feature=youtu.be (Don't blow up and then cut off picture content to make it fit, but instead take the full content and add black bars left+right to preserve all "information" that was filmed originally).

hello_hello

10th July 2016, 03:06

Well, maybe not, forget it. I should forget this and just remember: "keep aspect ratio" + strict (result: anamorphic 768) and ignore the rest.

768x576 isn't anamorphic. It's resized to square pixels. You're probably using "anamorphic none" which does just that.
Edit: Unless you're referring to the display aspect ratio Handbrake displays, although even so, I don't think there's a "keep aspect ratio" option for any of the anamorphic encoding methods as the aspect ratio is always kept. Only anamorphic none, which isn't anamorphic.

I generally resize 4:3 PAL to 640x480 (square pixels). I know it's technically not the best method but I've compared 640x480, 720x540 and 768x576 etc many times, and running fullscreen on my TV I've got to stop each video on the same frame and compare them that way to have any hope of telling them apart, and even then there's so little loss of detail at 640x480.... at least if the source is interlaced. Interlaced video has two 720x288 fields kind of combining to make a 720x576 frame, but kind of.... as the fields are different moments in time. So if you use a good de-interlacer (ie QTGMC) and de-interlace to full frame rate (50fps for PAL) then you're not going to lose much detail resizing down a bit (it's like 1080i and 720p having similar resolutions). Progressive DVDs might be a different story as they're 25fps and the whole frame is the same moment in time, but chances are you can resize to 640x480 and still not see a loss of detail. We're talking about 4:3 DVDs, which usually aren't exactly the definition of quality to begin with.
And you can always increase the encoding quality if you reduce the resolution so the encoder throws less information away. Swings and roundabouts....

The problem with not cropping is potentially the same as the "16:9 video on a 4:3 frame on a 16:9 screen" problem, where you have a smaller 16:9 image surrounded by black. If you encode a 16:9 DVD that contains a widescreen picture without cropping, it's 16:9 forever. If you were to display it on a screen that's not 16:9 the player needs to add more black borders. If you played the video on a 2.40:1 screen it'd still be 16:9 with borders down each side. If you were to crop the black and encode it as 2.40:1 though, it's not 16:9 any more so it can fill a 2.40:1 screen.
Many players let you zoom in and out but personally I prefer to crop the black and encode just the picture, then if the picture isn't the same shape as the screen the player just needs to add the appropriate amount of black on playback.

The YouTube video you posted shows a fairly standard problem. 4:3 is a bit old-fashioned so sometimes it's cropped to 16:9, or sometimes in-between (I've seen some old Doctor Who Episodes remastered to something like 1.57:1), but keep in mind the transition from 4:3 to 16:9 was fairly gradual. Many TV shows were framed so they could be cropped to either aspect ratio without losing essential picture. I remember it being mentioned on the Scrubs DVDs, although I don't think they've been re-released as 16:9, but it's not unusual for information that was originally filmed to be cropped away. I don't know if Star Trek fits into that category, or if it was only filmed with 4:3 in mind and now it's being cropped to make it 16:9, but me.... I often zoom in on 4:3 video so it fills a 16:9 screen. The trick is to also move the picture down a little as the centre of action tends to be a bit above the centre of the frame, but I can generally watch 4:3 video at 16:9 without feeling like I'm missing out (there's the occasional head cut off but generally I can watch a whole episode without being reminded it's not really 16:9). I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but each to their own.
I've encoded a few 4:3 videos while cropping them to 16:9, but by "panning and scanning" ie moving the cropping up or down scene by scene so as not to lose anything important. It takes just a little less than forever to do it well, especially manually with Avisynth, and I doubt I'll ever do it again, but it looks like it was originally 16:9. I also encoded them as 4:3 though, so I'm not totally evil. ;)

This one probably wasn't filmed with 16:9 in mind as it's pretty old, but I generally zoom like this. I was at a friends place a while back and it appears his cable company are broadcasting it in 16:9 too.

https://s32.postimg.org/qzt2txyc5/mbb1.jpg

https://s31.postimg.org/7g051m4d7/mbb2.jpg

Did you try that calculator I linked to earlier? A whole other can of worms....
I'm pretty sure Handbrake resizes 4:3 DVDs to 4:3 or sets the aspect ratio to 4:3, which would be wrong for most 4:3 DVDs. Probably all of them. The aspect ratio is roughly 1.366, not 1.333.
The calculator lets you use "ITU" resizing for DVDs, which would be correct for 4:3 DVDs. Most 16:9 DVDs don't use ITU resizing though (in my opinion). They're usually 16:9. Here's some pixel aspect ratio info:
https://www.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1058927#post1058927
If Handbrake always resizes to exactly 4:3 you might want to use the calculator for 4:3 DVDs and over-ride Handbrake's resizing. If there's no cropping, resizing to 788x576 or 738x540 or 656x480 square pixels etc would be better.
If you use anamorphic encoding you can tell Handbrake the desired PAR with "anamorphic custom", but that's a whole other story....

There's a newer version of the calculator here with more choices of pixel aspect ratio, but rule of thumb.... use the MPEG4 or ITU PARs for 4:3 DVDs and use the generic PARS for 16:9.
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=173635

Moppelkotze

11th July 2016, 19:32

Oh, you put a lot of work in that text. Thank you. I will try to adress your questions and aspects mentioned, though I am a bit overwhelmed and have to read it again. But otherwise it will take longer to answr. So here is a quick shot:

# Did I have a look into the calculator:
yes, but it is Windows only and I was shy to admit, that I am a Macuser, because that usually is seen as a sign that the user has no idea of anything (well, as if a further degree down would even be possible, after my posts so far ;) and the ignorance I've shown). For the record and my defense I have no iPhone, used Macs before the hype.
I have however looked into this http://andrew.hedges.name/experiments/aspect_ratio/ and then went with this http://calculateaspectratio.com/

# 768x576 isn't anamorphic. It's resized to square pixels. You're probably using "anamorphic none" which does just that.
Edit: Unless you're referring to the display aspect ratio Handbrake displays, although even so, I don't think there's a "keep aspect ratio" option for any of the anamorphic encoding methods as the aspect ratio is always kept. Only anamorphic none, which isn't anamorphic.

No, a) there is "keep aspect ratio" option and b) I am using strict. none doesn't give me 768x576. See appended screenshots. (waiting for approval).

# but keep in mind the transition from 4:3 to 16:9 was fairly gradual. Many TV shows were framed so they could be cropped to either aspect ratio without losing essential picture.
As you mention it, I remember - it adds to what you say - that I read about "action save" and "picture save" or something similar. You film a wider set, but try to define an area that has to be seen in the end product no matter how the picture will be cutted later. (Hence parts where you see microphones or camera lights in raw material of films). Well, what am I talking about, you already know this, of course.
Look at the german wikipedia entry, it has nice pictures that already explain a lot (the english article is quite different, not as "visual") https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schutzbereich_(Filmtechnik)

# your observation, that with different resolutions, you usually had to stop and compare frame to frame to see a difference:
This is the "feeling" I have to, but I always think then, well maybe sometime I will get another TV/Monitor and my present one is just not good enough, so when I now decide for the smaller resolution, I will not see it now, but I will see it on a future better device and then it is to late, because you can't go back once you have thrown detail away. So I try to keep the original resolution, just to be sure I don't ruin it myself.

PS: I tried every possible "anamorphic" setting now. Result was, that there was no difference on my TV (no egg-heads), they all looked the same. On my PC-Monitor one of the 3 (loose, none, strict) in VLC and Quicktime, 1 was narrower width, but I didn't really see that the picture looked distorted, which is where I ask myself, if my eyes are that bad.

hello_hello

12th July 2016, 16:12

yes, but it is Windows only and I was shy to admit, that I am a Macuser....

The calculator I referred to looks like this (resizing PAL 4:3):

https://s32.postimg.org/468ya4ivp/calculator.gif

I mainly suggested it as something to play with to help better understand the resizing of anamorphic video and aspect ratios etc as it displays the source aspect ratio, the resize aspect ratio, the aspect error (only applies to resizing to square pixels) and if you're not resizing to square pixels, the "matroska ratio" is the display aspect ratio to set for anamorphic encoding. As you crop or resize it changes the appropriate values accordingly.

Handbrake does all that for you but it doesn't display as much detail and you can't decide on the pixel aspect ratio yourself. I don't know if there's a Mac equivalent of that calculator.

The two calculators you linked to just seem to calculate aspect ratios and resizing when the source has square pixels, which you can do yourself easily enough, but when the source pixels aren't square the source pixel aspect ratio needs to be added to the equation, which still isn't too hard, but a calculator such as the one I linked to makes it easy to fiddle with the cropping and resizing etc without having to work it all out manually each time.

No, a) there is "keep aspect ratio" option and b) I am using strict. none doesn't give me 768x576. See appended screenshots. (waiting for approval).

They've not been approved yet so for the moment I assume the Mac and Windows versions must differ in that respect. I've still got Handbrake 0.9.9.5530 installed so maybe the newer version is different?
As a general rule though, if there's a "keep aspect ratio" option you'd probably want to enable it.

Older versions of Handbrake wouldn't resize "up" at all when resizing to square pixels (anamorphic none) so the maximum width would be 720 and the height would be resized down for the correct aspect ratio (720x540 for 4:3).
I believe the newer (Windows) versions resize "up" so you can resize to 768x576 if you like (or resize to 1024x576 for 16:9 etc). I'm not sure about the Mac version though. Or I've got it wrong, but what I posted about resizing to square pixels was based on the assumption Handbrake would let you resize to 768x576 using anamorphic none. If it doesn't sorry if that confused things.

This is the "feeling" I have to, but I always think then, well maybe sometime I will get another TV/Monitor and my present one is just not good enough, so when I now decide for the smaller resolution, I will not see it now, but I will see it on a future better device and then it is to late, because you can't go back once you have thrown detail away. So I try to keep the original resolution, just to be sure I don't ruin it myself.

That's always possible. I definitely developed more of an appreciation for resolution after I stopped using a CRT TV, and it also made me pay more attention to Xvid's shortcomings.
There days though, my PC is connected to a 51" Plasma sitting next to my desk, and as I generally use an AVIsynth based GUI for encoding, I often create a few different Avisynth scripts (different resolutions and/or filtering etc), open them with MPC-HC and compare them running fullscreen on the TV before I start encoding. For me that's worse case scenario in respect to how much loss of detail I can see. At "normal" viewing distance it's a whole different story.

But yeah, obviously if you don't reduce the resolution you can't lose detail through reducing the resolution, so it's no doubt the safest in that respect. :)

PS: I tried every possible "anamorphic" setting now. Result was, that there was no difference on my TV (no egg-heads), they all looked the same. On my PC-Monitor one of the 3 (loose, none, strict) in VLC and Quicktime, 1 was narrower width, but I didn't really see that the picture looked distorted, which is where I ask myself, if my eyes are that bad.

Maybe you left auto-cropping enabled for one of them without realising. That'd change the display aspect ratio as some of the picture is removed, but if Handbrake did it's job correctly, which it seems it did, the picture itself won't be distorted, but the width would be narrower as there's a bit of picture removed from the sides. Or something like that.... I'm just guessing without being able to see them myself.

If your player displays "anamorphic strict" correctly then that's probably the one to use as there's no resizing involved when encoding. Even if you enable cropping you're still encoding the remaining video "as-is" and nothing is resized until playback time.

Moppelkotze

15th July 2016, 16:08

Thank you again so much for your help and thoughts! Also that you have invested so much time in it, when I was bad at understanding!

:thanks:

RE: the different Handbrake versions
I don't know about 0.9.9
But I used to use 0.9.4 on Mac and the change to 0.10.5 was massive. They deleted some options and changed the way some things are represented. Also you have to activate advanced settings in the presets. They did that because there argument was, that they had too many user complaints and found out that there is probably hardly any user who can find better settings than the developers of version 10 have already found (re x264). You can still fill in custom code in a box like with these numbers 2:0:0:1:9:0:0 and such...

Else I noticed that the windows version doesn't look as "tidy" and more "old" and really was different in where certain elements of the application were displayed, last I compared 0.9.x Mac vs Win from screenshots.

Also the official Handbrake wiki still refers to 0.9.4 or earlier, which sometimes makes it hard following the sugguestions.

I found a screenshot of the "strict" setting in 0.10.5 on Mac. I hope the link doesn't have to be aproved as well. scroll down to he last picture http://images.google.de/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fstatic.filehorse.com%2Fscreenshots-mac%2Fvideo-software%2Fhandbrake-screenshot-04.png&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fmac.filehorse.com%2Fdownload-handbrake%2Fscreenshots%2F&h=786&w=1058&tbnid=IWzKBH8IVOjBiM%3A&docid=0nblc0ZFyVu5GM&ei=cvqIV9igNYaksgHIp6aIAg&tbm=isch&client=firefox-b&iact=rc&uact=3&dur=2041&page=1&start=0&ndsp=20&ved=0ahUKEwjYoa383fXNAhUGkiwKHciTCSEQMwgwKAowCg&bih=858&biw=1280

hello_hello

15th July 2016, 19:11

Maybe the "keep aspect ratio" option was added to the other anamorphic methods for newer versions. I'm not sure. I can't upgrade Handbrake at the moment as I'm still using XP.

Having a "keep aspect ratio" for anamorphic strict seems almost a contradiction though, assuming if it's not checked Handbrake doesn't set the display aspect ratio and you just get square pixels and the video is squished or stretched. Anamorphic strict without "keep aspect ratio" sounds like the definition of "not anamorphic", but maybe I'm missing something.

The way I recall the "advanced settings" problem was the advanced settings usually weren't displaying the settings actually being used.
The x264 tunings and speed presets adjust the advanced settings in a pre-defined way, but rather than fiddle with individual settings you can change a preset. So.... for example.... you'd select the film tuning and it adjusts the deblock and psy settings a bit... effectively to their new defaults. So the default advanced settings for the film tuning are effectively a bit different to the default advanced settings for the grain tuning etc. Ideally when you switched to the advanced tab it'd reflect any changes due to a change in preset, but instead it might display advanced settings different to those being used.
I'm not sure why they didn't "fix" the GUI so you could change a speed preset and switch to the advanced tab and see the appropriate advanced settings had changed accordingly, because I think that was what much of the complaining was about, but instead they gave you a choice of using presets or fiddling with advanced settings yourself. They're probably right in one respect though. For most users there's not much need to stray away from the defaults and the tunings and speed presets are fine. They are for me.

Moppelkotze

17th July 2016, 01:37

hello_hello

17th July 2016, 05:04

regarding the "keep aspect ratio":
for strict and loose the box is always checked, but greyed out. So it isn't possible to uncheck it. Only none and custom allow to check and uncheck the "keep aspect ratio" box. So I missed to give you important information and I caused the confusion. :) So you're right, it would be a contradiction (...if it was possible to uncheck it.). Heh, I could have made it less confusing.

That sounds more logical. For the Handbrake version I have the option isn't there at all, but maybe now it is for the newer Windows version too? I'm not sure.

RE: advanced settings and letting the advanced menue show you what is checked, when you select a certain preset:
With at least the new version 0.10.5 I can tell you, that I just a few minutes ago found out, that you can make Handbrake show what is set, when a certain preset is active. But there is a trick.

1. choose the preset, then check "use advanced settings"
2. you will now see what the preset has done to the advanced settings. (you can change individual parameters of the chosen preset now)
3. go back and uncheck "use advanced settings", then move the speed preset control. Now again check "use advanced settings". You will now see, that you are presented other individual settings under the advanced menue.

That sounds more sensible.
The GUI I use (MeGUI) lets you fiddle with presets and advanced settings at the same time and if you change a preset it adjusts the appropriate advanced settings to the defaults for that preset, but only those settings. The rest are left as they were. You always know what it's doing because it only adds advanced settings to the command line when they're not set to the default for the selected preset, and it shows you the command line so you always know exactly what settings are being used.

Hopefully I explained that well but from what you describe I'm not sure Handbrake allows you to use the presets and advanced settings together in exactly the same way, but if not it certainly sounds like a step in the right direction.

It is just conter-intuitive, that one can only change the advanced settings, if you first select a certain given preset. If you just go to the advanced panel without checking the box you will see greyed out options.

I'd put that in the "hope it's just a bug in the GUI" category, because I can't think of a reason why it should have to work that way.

Oh, wait or did I misunderstand you and that was what you said and you did just explain to me WHY they had changed it? So like in version 0.9.x you could EITHER use a preset OR fiddle arround with advanced settings (having no hint what one of the presets would have chosen. Now in 0.10.x you can use a preset and then after checking the advanced box, you can see what the preset has picked for you and you can adjust the presets choices itself ratehr than starting with advanced settings from zero in every option.

Yeah, originally you could see the presets and the advanced settings at the time time (under different tabs) but as the advanced settings didn't change according to any tuning or speed preset changes they weren't indicating the advanced settings actually being used, so the GUI was changed so you could use either presets or advanced settings, but not both.

You reminded me of a fairly old discussion and when I found it I saw someone mentioned the Linux version of Handbrake was given interacting presets and advanced settings over three years ago. At least the nightly builds worked that way.
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1609737#post1609737
Maybe the different Handbrake flavours have unrelated GUIs to a certain extent, or the GUIs for different operating systems are created using different software, and maybe it was harder to implement on Windows, but I assume it changed at some point.
I can't upgrade Handbrake on Windows because the newer versions don't run on XP but I have a working Linux PC now (I'm planning on migrating to Linux full time eventually) so I should install the latest version on it for a look at some stage.

I think the presets are already very good, I mean what would a person like me do without them anyway? To make your own choices and create own presets I imagine one had to really dive deep into the matter.

I think when it comes to tweaking advanced settings it really needs to be done on a "per video" basis, which would mean a lot of work.

I found a tutorial or introduction that gives one a feeling/hint on how certain stuff of the denoise function works: https://mattgadient.com/2013/06/29/in-depth-look-at-de-noising-in-handbrake-with-imagevideo-examples/ there is also a video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93GtdIkrrLA (examples in the video don't make much sense, since youtube encodes uploaded videos again and you can't do anything against it.)

I've used my "wasting time in front of the computer" quota for the moment but I'll have a read tomorrow, or tonight if get a chance.