Aspect Ratio Problems

[jeffmikels]

I ripped National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation using DVDDecryptor. Used DVD2AVI, AviSynth, and VirtualDubMod to edit some scenes out. Then, I frameserved to bbmpeg for MPEG-2 encoding.

I've done it many times, but to get the final mpg to look right in Windows Media Player 9, I have to set bbmpeg to use "SquarePels" for the aspect ratio.

4:3 makes it too narrow, but 16:9 makes it too wide. SquarePels makes it work just right (the film is 720 x 480)

Now, I want to burn a new DVD with the final mpeg2 file. MyDVD won't accept the final file, so I have to use IfoEdit which creates the VIDEO_TS directory just perfectly, but IFOEdit doesn't seem to like the Square pixels aspect ratio. It always forces 4:3 or 16:9.

Any idea what I can do about this?

[Matthew]

Sorry, I can't help, so here is a potentionally very unconstructive response.

I've never heard of anyone using bbmpeg for encoding, is there a particular reason you can't use something else? e.g. CCE or TMPGEnc.

[jeffmikels]

Yes, of course there is a reason for using bbmpeg. It's FREE!:)

All the other MPEG-2 tools cost money.

Anyway, the bottom line is that I have a DVD compliant MPEG-2 file that works perfectly on the computer, but when I create VOBS using IMGTool and IFOedit I end up with aspect ratio issues.

[mpucoder]

I'm no expert on bbmpeg (OK, I've never used it, I know nothing) but a quick search of the forum makes me believe that it resizes the video. In this thread (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=21970&highlight=bbmpeg+AND+square) "square pel" turned a 480x480 source into 720x720. If, and this is a big if, "square" means retain the aspect ratio of the source, and bbmpeg will not increase the horizontal beyond 720, then square is what you want for the encoding.

The DVD, on the other hand, needs to be set to the same aspect ratio as the original. IfoEdit will assume 4:3, so you need to look at the original, and change your new DVD accordingly. You can even copy the flags about letterboxing and Pan/Scan (although you may be missing appropriately positioned subpictures).

[Kedirekin]

Could this really be an issue of using WMP to double check your encoding. In my experience, WMP doesn't show aspect ratios correctly.

Of course, that would imply that WMP would always show it the same way, regardless of what aspect ratio you used for encoding. That isn't what you are describing, so I guess that can't be the issue (it's still worth mentioning though).

That aside, the original content on the Christmas Vacation DVD was either 4:3 or 16:9; those are the only two aspect ratios allowed on DVDs. As long as you didn't crop away any black bars or anything, the aspect should remain unchanged. You should encode and author it with the original aspect ratio.


Posted at the same time as mpucoder. His post is better, so ignore this one.

[mpucoder]

No, don't ignore Kedirekin's post - read everything you can!

[jeffmikels]

Thanks for all your help so far, but I really need to hear from someone who is actually using bbmpeg. None of the replies so far have actually addressed my issue.

Simply put, I have a 720 x 480 MPEG-2 DVD compliant video file that when burned to DVD using IFOEdit, IMGTool and DVDDecryptor, fails to display properly. Changing settings, I can make it display stretched vertically filling the screen, stretched horizontally and letterboxed, or cropped on the sides but filling the screen.

I can't get it to work properly. Is my problem likely during the encoding process, during the IFO creation process, or during the burning process?