encoding a movie with 16:9 aspect ratio to a 4:3 ratio instead

[nate klefsas]

can anyone explain to me why when i encode a movie that is nstc 16:9 at a size of nstc of 4:3 I will get a movie that is full screen, its what i want, cause it looks great and takes up the whole screen. will I be able to do the same thing the other way around be encoding a 4:3 movie in 16:9 to get a full screen?

[JensG.]

I don't understand the problem. Is it that the movie is played in full screen size, but you want it in the original resolution? Which media player do you use?

[nate klefsas]

i just figured out why by messing around with it, changed the above. but why does it become full screen, will it do the same if i take a 4:3 movie and make it a 16:9 movie?

[SiXXGuNNZ]

huh? do you even know what you are asking? as for 16:9 vs 4:3, there is technically more picture in a 16:9, pan & scan is the work of the devil and full framed movies are horrible imo.

[JensG.]

Now I understand even less of the question :D

[nate klefsas]

haha, well i changed my input pixel aspect ratio in g-knot to 4:3 and encoded that way when the actual aspect ratio for the movie was 16:9, should have select 16:9 for the input pixel aspect ratio because that is the actual aspect ratio the movie is, I know this because I looked at my log from using dvd dycripter and it say the movie is "0xE0 - Video - MPEG-2 / 720x480 (NTSC) / 16:9 / Letterboxed / LBA: 1 / PTS: 00:00:00.195 / Delay: 0ms"
so by selecting 4:3 instead of selecting the actual ratio of 16:9 I made it a 4:3 instead, doing that gave me a movie that took up the whole screen and looks pretty decent. Why did that happen? can it work the other way around 4:3 to 16:9?

[JensG.]

I think of one movie, where this would make sense: Coneheads
http://image.allmusic.com/00/adg/cov150/DRT100/T105/t105680dy6z.jpg
Well, of course you can change the final resolution of your encode. But if you change it you will either get wrong resolution or, er..., or wrong resolution.

[jggimi]

@Nate, a little background and level setting is in order. Please forgive me if I'm telling you things you already know.

First: DVDs all have the same pixel resolution -- 720x576 PAL, 720x480 NTSC -- but one of two possible Display Aspect Ratios (DARs) -- 4:3 or 16:9.

Second: Films can have any number of different aspect ratios, and regardless of the film's aspect ratio, either 4:3 or 16:9 DAR may be used by the DVD production company. The difference between the DAR and the film's aspect ratio is taken up by letterboxing.

Third: Converting to AVI for display on PC requires resizing. PC displays use square pixels, and DVDs are neither stored nor displayed with square pixels.

Fourth: DAR fields in the MPEG-2 stream (from the .VOB files) may not be correct; DARs are also in the .IFO files, and sometimes conflict. DVD players use the IFO, but DVD2AVI (and therfore R4R) use the MPEG-2 stream. So Gknot may return an incorrect DAR upon opening a .d2v file. If things look squished or stretched using Gknot's preview function in "Resized" mode, then it is possible the DAR is incorrect and needs to be switched from 4:3 to 16:9, or from 16:9 to 4:3. Look at round things (clocks, wheels, etc.) if you can't determine which is the correct DAR. Or, pick the DAR that produces a square resolution closest to the film's resolution after trimming letterboxing.

Fifth: Wide screen movies are usually transferred with 16:9 DAR. This will reduce the amount of letterboxing compared to a 4:3 transfer, as there is more of the video stream containing content. This doesn't happen all the time. Many "widescreen" movies are transferred with 4:3 DARs. One that comes to mind is 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment's 1999 transfer of The King and I, as I was just working with it this week. This film was one of only two ever shot in Cinemascope 55, which has an aspect ratio of 2.55:1. The R1 transfer was unfortunately done in 4:3, so fully half of the 480 lines of vertical resolution is consumed by letterboxing.

Sixth: Those who prefer to see "fullscreen" movies because they preferr to "use up" their entire 4:3 PC monitors or 4:3 TVs miss a great deal of the content, and usually, a great deal of the director's and cinematographer's vision. Yes, there are DVD players that can produce fullscreen-like images from widescreen transfers, either through a pan&scan-like capability, or through misconfiguring the output. Please read Aspect Ratios Explained (http://www.doom9.org/aspectratios.htm) for more information on both DVD contents, and Pan&Scan fullscreen (either through the player, or through purchasing "fullscreen" DVDs).

[nate klefsas]

I set my video to tv scale under video tab in dvd to avi, so that means i dont have to worry about square pixles cause i dont watch movies on my computer right, does it matter? the real problem for me was when i tryed encoding me, myself, and irene at a aspect ratio of 16:9 but alway got shitty results, plus for some reason the movie would not resize to the resolution i wanted, all ways came out to be around 600x400 or so, dident like it cause the quality blew. so I tryed encoding into 4:3 and I get a full screen movie that looked much better then the 16:9 movie and looks almost perfect on my tv. I tryed reading the aspect ratio link but it dident do much but confuse a little. I'm just gonna keep doing them the way I have been cause i think it looks great and it take up the whole screen, it works

[jggimi]

PC Scale vs. TV Scale has to do with color range. You will still have to worry about square pixels if you are using a PC's video card with a TV-out, or, as far as I know, when using DivX-capable standalone players.

According to IMDB, "Me, Myself, & Irene" was shot on Spherical 35mm, and the film has an aspect ratio of 1.85:1. And the same database has records for both R1 and R2 releases, both of which are apparently designed to be seen at 1.85:1, or widescreen. That doesn't necessarily mean that the DARs are also 16:9 (same as 1.85:1), but it is likely.

I have no idea what most of the settings you were using when you had a problem with Gknot set with a PAR (a kin of DAR) of 16:9, however 600x400 is 1.5:1, which is not the proper aspect ratio for a 1.85:1 film. With that information, I expect some sort of procedural problem, such as skipping cropping and setting the PAR to 1:1.

I'm happy you are satisfied with your results. From what knowledge I have of creating AVI videos from DVD sources, I'm also astonished you found them acceptable. Aside from cutting out a portion of the image, 4:3 requires many more pixels per frame, requiring higher bitrates. And, though I'm not sure of your methodology, I would guess you have "squished" or "squeezed" the image during resizing.

Perhaps someone who has experience with the same film(s) you've done this with would be interested in your _Gknot.logs and .avs scripts.

[nate klefsas]

I'm gonna try it again at 16:9, that wasent the exact resolution i gave you, i estimated. but i will have the real values if i try it again and have problems, thanks

[nate klefsas]

well i encoded at 16:9 and the quality still stinks on my computer. on the otherhand, wheni play the movie on my tv the quality is somewhat exceptible, another problem i might be having with quality issues is that i put the whole movie on one cd, not two like most people. what i realyy need is a dvd player that plays mpeg4

[jggimi]

I recommend you post your applicable _gknot.log files. Without them, anything I or others say will be purely conjecture. As I stated, I do not understand how you can possibly see your 4:3 "version" as better.

Your two log files might provide reasons why... other than possibly your eyesight or taste. :rolleyes:

[nate klefsas]

I believe you now that 16:9 is better, its just that if i want the picture to be clearer I must resize instead of useing the itu standard, which does give a decent looking picture, especially on a tv, but definately not on a pc monitor cause the bits per pixel is too low for such a big resolution when you are only encoding onto one cd, so the quality isint so good, unless watched on tv. maybe i should consider putting movies on two cds and get better quality for a standard resolution, which you will always get if you select itu.601 standard in options tab. i know if i go for a smaller resolution which i do that picture looks great but is just not as big as the standard would be. thanks, I would put up the log file but i think i got it under raps

[nate klefsas]

I think the reason i couldent get a movie that was full screen was because i select the wide screen version when useing the decrypter, i selected what i think is the standard file, i think and am going to try it