WMV Aspect Ratio Changing?

[Crazyj32]

I have a 512x384 avi that I want to convert to a 512x384 wmv.

The only problem is that the avi is inproperly resized: People are tall. The proper sizing would be 16:9.

What I want to do is encode to a wmv of equal dimensions, but with a proper re-scaling header. The encoding part is not the problem, is there a way to either:

• Encode to a wmv9 @ 512x384 and 16:9? (without black borders)
• Encode a wmv9 @ 512x384 with square pixels and subsequently change the header to tell media player to resize it to 16:9?

Plz Help

[jagabo]

ASF and WMV support DAR/PAR. Use WME.

[Placio74]

WMVARChanger (WMV Aspect Ratio Changer)


Mirror download:

[zedalis]

Placio74 - I have been looking for such a tool as that for years - Thanks a million!

[1031982]

I just ran into some issues with some videos, this took care of it! Awesome link Placio74!

[Videogamer555]

Unfortunately, Windows Media Player does not honor those Aspect Ratio tags in the WMV file, as saved by this tool. The player is made by Microsoft. The file format and the associated specs (such as what are valid metadata tags) was made by Microsoft, so you'd think it would honor it, but it does not. Unless these tags have been depricated, and replaced by some other tag (or these tags were intended to be used in concert with another metadata tag that would command WMP to honor these aspect ratio tags), it seems that there may be a bug in WMP. I know that right away VLC player honors these tags without any other changes to the WMV file.

I'm hoping someone else here knows how to fix this problem.

[manono]

I'm hoping someone else here knows how to fix this problem.

Easy, don't use WMP. No one in their right mind does anyway.

[El Heggunte]

You may remux to Matroska and then set the proper display aspect ratio.

It seems Haali dsmuxer supports ASF files as input. MKVtoolnix certainly does not, but you can use Gabest's Matroska Muxer for getting an intermediate MKV file.

[jagabo]

Unfortunately, Windows Media Player does not honor those Aspect Ratio tags in the WMV file, as saved by this tool.

It does on my Windows 7 computer. Be aware that the value you're setting is the pixel aspect ratio, not the display aspect ratio.

[Videogamer555]

Unfortunately, Windows Media Player does not honor those Aspect Ratio tags in the WMV file, as saved by this tool.

It does on my Windows 7 computer. Be aware that the value you're setting is the pixel aspect ratio, not the display aspect ratio.

I was watching a movie that someone had encoded into 640x480 which has a 4:3 storage aspect ratio (frame width/height = 640/480 = 4/3), when the movie's native aspect ratio is 16:9. I didn't want to reencode the movie, as that would reduce quality. By default, all videos are assumed to have a 1:1 pixel aspect ratio, and to get a 16:9 displayed aspect ratio, when the storage aspect ratio is 4:3, you must set the pixel aspect ratio to 4:3. PIR=DAR/SAR, so (16/9) / (4/3) = 4/3. In VLC player. So I used the program in question to set the PAR to 4:3. When I played the video back in WMP (contrary to your claim that it should work) I found that it did NOT work! And yes, I'm using WMP in Win7, just as you said. But VLC player does honor the PAR tags.

I'm guessing I have WMP configured incorrectly somehow, as MS's own player should be able to recognize every metadata tag that is part of the official MS specification for an MS file format.

Can you tell me how to get WMP to recognize the PAR tags?

[Cornucopia]

Sounds to me like you misread the source, miscalculated the adjustment, mis-specified the setting change, or mis-read the output. WMP DOES honor all WM AR flags. I have looked at HUNDREDS if not THOUSANDS of WM files of various ARs and NONE of them has ever played incorrectly in WMP.

MS wasn't fully media-aware when they started with AVI (which is why it doesn't have EXPLICIT AR flagging), but they corrected much of their errors in ASF/WMV. Only major downside of the ASF/WMV container is MS's belligerent NIH & "My way or the highway" attitude which has stymied acceptance rather than galvanized it. Something to be said for international standards, whether Proprietary (MPEG/MP4) or Open (MKV/WebM).

If you really believe you have found the exception to the rule and you are not mistaken, post a short sample of your "before" and your "after" so we can judge for ourselves.

Scott

[jagabo]

Can you tell me how to get WMP to recognize the PAR tags?

Maybe you've installed some DirectShow filter that's not passing the AR information along to the video renderer. Unfortunately, WMP itself doesn't give you much in the way of diagnostic tools. You can try use GraphStudioNext to build a filter graph and see what filters are used to play the video. The program doesn't render the video with the correct aspect ratio but you can see that the AR is flagged in the VIDEOINFOHEADER2 chunk with the dwPictAspectRatioX nad dwPictAspectRatioY (display aspect ratio, not pixel aspect ratio) flags. That information is passed from the source filter (qasf.dll) to the WMVideo Decoder DMO (qasf.dll) and to the video renderer (quartz.dll, Video Mixing Renderer). With the original WMV file (before WmvArChanger) there are no AR flags.