Determining Aspect Ratio of VOB's

[bassmadrigal]

Okay, I have done about thrity minutes of searching but came up empty. I am looking for a program that can detect the theatrical aspect ratio of a VOB ripped from a DVD using DVDDecrypter. I have read of a lot of calculations you can do yourself, but most of these were written last year or longer, and I was hoping that a program now exists for this.

To encode my movies I use DVDx 2.3 and DVDDecrypter 3.5.4.0. I use DVDDecrypter because most of the time I don't have time to rip the movie after I watched it. Currently when I encode in the output section, I select Full Zoom, and if the movie is Full-Screen I select a resolution of 640x480 and if the movie is widescreen I use 640x368. I don't remember where I read on what resolution to use for widescreen, but I haven't had problems with that particular one.

The reason I want to find the above program is so I can set the resolution to the video size, because sometimes the black bars on where the video ends and where the player fills in to fill the rest of the screen are different shades of brightness. And to make sure all the quality is going into the video itself and not any black lines going across

Oh and I am using Divx 5.2.1.

Thanks in advance for any help, and as you can see by my post count I am still fairly new to this forum, so if I ommited any pertinent information let me know and I will try to post it as soon as possible.

Jeremy

[manono]

Hi-

Your method of setting the resolution for widescreen movies is pretty much guaranteed to give you a bad aspect ratio. Either that or you're keeping some remaining black bars in the video. I've never used DVDx, but from reading, I thought it was pretty good. It has to allow you to crop away the black bars and then to get the resolution from that. Anyway, I'd recommend you look into AutoGK for making your videos. It'll give you a proper Aspect Ratio automatically, with no leftover black bars. It comes with a tutorial, and Doom9 has also written guides.

If anyone reading this has had experience with DVDx, maybe you can set him straight.

[bassmadrigal]

Thanks for the reply. As far as using my current settings, it does leave black bars in the video (which is the reason for posting in the first place), but with using the full zoom I don't run into any resolution problems.

The problem I have with AutoGK is that the quality it encodes the video is for some reason is lower than with DVDx. I have taken a couple of different movies and encoded them with each program to determine that. I don't know if it is the actual bitrate or another factor. Both programs are using the Divx codec and 128 bit VBR/MP3 audio. And in AutoGK I have specified a fixed width of 640. Obviously AutoGK is able to detect the theatrical resolution and is able to crop the video to the correct size. I am just looking for a program that will give me the theatrical ratio so I can input it into DVDx and get the higher quality.

Again any help is appreciated.

Jeremy

[SeeMoreDigital]

If you are talking about determining the movie aspect ratio of commercially released DVD's, a good source of information can be obtained from Amazon.com.

Once you've found your DVD title, click on "See More Product Details" and then on "Click Here For More Technical Details About This Edition..." Once there, you should be able to find the aspect ratio of the movie ;)

Or.....

If you have some "image editing software" you could say, play your .VOB in a software player such as MediaPlayer Classic and capture an uncorrected still image like this: -

http://img237.echo.cx/img237/9103/uncorrected720x5762my.jpg

Load the uncorrected still image into your "image editing software" and use "auto trim" to crop away the black mattes like this: -

http://img237.echo.cx/img237/445/autotrimmed720x4365zv.jpg

Now.... if you are familiar with how "anamorphic" video images appear when stored on a DVD, then you will know that an 720x436 anamorphic image equates to and movie AR of 2.35:1.


Cheers

[yaz]

hmmm ... maybe i'm a dumbass but isn't it written on the dvd cover ?

the bests
y

[bassmadrigal]

Thanks for the reply Yaz, but in my previous searching, most people have stated that the covers aren't very accurate, plus after I rip my vob's onto my hard drive and go back later to encode, it is a pain to go find the original case (packed in my safe) , because I re-burn the movies to a DVD-R to protect my originals.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by bassmadrigal
Thanks for the reply Yaz, but in my previous searching, most people have stated that the covers aren't very accurate, plus after I rip my vob's onto my hard drive and go back later to encode, it is a pain to go find the original case (packed in my safe) , because I re-burn the movies to a DVD-R to protect my originals. In my experience, the information on the DVD covers is fairly accurate... But you might find the following pixel sizes (calculated to the nearest 16th pixel) useful, when attempting to determine the movies AR from an anamorphic image: -

NTSC video
1.77:1 = 720x480 pixels
1.85:1 = 720x464 pixels with black mattes cropped
2.35:1 = 720x368 pixels with black mattes cropped

PAL Video
1.77:1 = 720x576 pixels
1.85:1 = 720x560 pixels with black mattes cropped
2.35:1 = 720x436 pixels with black mattes cropped

Cheers

[yaz]

Originally posted by bassmadrigal
... most people have stated that the covers aren't very accurate ...i wonder what do they mean. if i get u right what u want to know is one of the standard ar values which is a simple ratio (4:3, 16:9, ...) how would it be inaccurate ?
Originally posted by bassmadrigal
... after I rip my vob's onto my hard drive and go back later to encode, it is a pain to go find the original case.. for quick checking use the guiding values of seemoredigital or simply start playing the vob in a sw player. all of that has an option for quick changing the (standard) ar. the one u like the most is that value u looking for.
the bests
y

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by yaz
for quick checking use the guiding values of seemoredigital or simply start playing the vob in a sw player. all of that has an option for quick changing the (standard) ar. the one u like the most is that value u looking for. And.... another tip is to put little guide marks on the edge of your monitor case to represent the positions of an 1.77:1, 1.85:1, 2.35:1 source/encode.

EDIT: I've just whipped up this "Movie AR Pixel Positioner" for you (and anybody else), so you know "exactly" where to mark the AR positions on your PC monitor: -

http://img216.echo.cx/img216/7625/moviearpixelpositioner7sn.th.png (http://img216.echo.cx/my.php?image=moviearpixelpositioner7sn.png)


Cheers

[bassmadrigal]

Wow. Thanks for all the responses. I personally think that the positioner that seemoredigital created is going to be a big help. I will just need to make the marks on my monitor. Now I will just need to tinker with DVDx to get all the settings the way I want.

Again thanks for all the help.

Jeremy