How can i play/convert 4:3 movies on 4:3 monitor appearing as (pseudo) 16:9 ?

[Flexy]

hi,

i have 640x480 videos, and my monitor is of course 4:3 too.

I want to either convert/render my videos so they get stretched to 853:480 into a pseudo 16:9 format. OR: Have a way to render (Sonic Vegas4.0) or play my 640x480 videos so they get stretched and appear as pseudo 16:9 'movies' instead of full screen. I *want* them letterboxed, i want the two black bars for artistic reasons.

*) i do NOT want to crop the videos.

Therefore, i thougt the best solution would be to *stretch* the videos (on the sides, left and right)...while keeping the middle at the same aspect.. if only 110 pixels on either side are stretched i might be able to live with it.
(Think of when you play a 4:3 show on a 16:9 tv)

I do just not know yet how i could do it.



Thanks !!!!

[TactX]

Welcome to the forum ;)

You can do that with "WarpedResize" (a filter for avisynth). I have not used it yet, so you have to do some reading.

Get the filter at trbarrys site (http://mywebpages.comcast.net/trbarry/downloads.htm) and there are also some example pics.

[unmei]

if you want that just on playback:
no problemo
all decent players should have a option to change the aspect ratio :)

in BS player its "aspect ratio" in the mouse menu (CTRL+2 for 16:9), in Media Player Classic you have many ways to change it (presets or scaling with the numpad keys and "touch screen from inside" checked) in TCMP you have a preset selection for pixel aspect, screen aspect etc (ratio profiles in the preferences, or set a hotkey to "video size box" (i have "u" but im not sure this is default) in zoom player again "aspect ratio" in the mouse menu...etc...

You see the only problem you probably have is using the wrong player (WMP ? LoL ! its probbly the only player really not able to do such stuff ;)


more modern containers than avi (ogg media and matroska) are about to implement a aspect ratio flag (i dont know the current state but i think its not far from working), so you can encode a video in say 640x480 and set the flag to 16:9 and the player will know it has to stretch to 16:9 automatically...this way you can encode DVD with the full res and dont need to stretch manually for widescreen

[Flexy]

thanks for the replies !

Yes, i got Zoomplayer yesterday and discovered i can easily 'letterbox' my 640x480 videos.

Problem is only the whole video gets the new aspect (shrinks vertically)...and i am looking for a method like described in my first posting...eg. that only the sides are stretched or something

thanks !

[E-Male]

erm, just to be sure:
you want a new resolution, without croppinng and without getting a new AR?

andwhat do you mean with "eg. that only the sides are stretched or something"?
you want it to, lets say, manipulate the left and right quater and keep the middle half as it is?
that shouldn´t be to hard with avisynth, i´ll post the script if noone else does

[Flexy]

yeah,

i figured when i stretch a 640x480 video to 852x480 this way and watch it full screen it should be the same as a 16:9 video.

Only the left and right sides of the frame gets stretched horizontally (like 110 pixels each side, slight distortion)...while the middle/main part of the video stays the same aspect.

AFAIK that's the way a 16:9 tv does it when you watch 4:3 tv shows and you let the tv stretch the frames so they fills the whole screen.

In my opinion a very good compromise...better than shrinking the whole video vertically or so..

greetings

[E-Male]

ok, here's a script doing what you asked for:
---------------------------------------------------------------------
input=avisource("*filename*",false)
left=input.crop(0,0,110,0)
center=input.crop(110,0,-110,0)
right=input.crop(530,0,0,0)
left=left.lanczosresize(216,480)
right=right.lanczosresize(216,480)
resul stackhorizontal(left,center,right)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
replace *filename* with your .avi file (must be 640x480)

as the results looked quite ugly to me i tryed to tweak the script a bit:
---------------------------------------------------------------------
input=avisource("*filename*",false)
a=input.crop(0,0,36,0)
b=input.crop(36,0,36,0)
c=input.crop(72,0,36,0)
d=input.crop(108,0,424,0)
e=input.crop(532,0,36,0)
f=input.crop(568,0,36,0)
g=input.crop(604,0,36,0)
a=a.lanczosresize(90,480)
b=b.lanczosresize(72,480)
c=c.lanczosresize(52,480)
e=e.lanczosresize(52,480)
f=f.lanczosresize(72,480)
g=g.lanczosresize(90,480)
return stackhorizontal(a,b,c,d,e,f,g)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
i hope this is what you where looking for
you should convert your files with that, the script seems to slow for using it in realtime while viewing, but you can try

CU
E-Male

[Flexy]

Thanks,

i will definetly give that a try too!

I also got me AviSynth and the one warp filter....and it does exactly what i wanted ! Great ! :)