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  1. Member
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    Hi all,

    I have an old Lacie Lacinema mediaplayer. NOT the newer HD version, mine is SD only. It’s old and it has it’s limitations and I will be replacing it in about half a year or so but for know it’ll have to do. Apparently it won’t play anything over 720X576 resolution. When I try this I get a message saying : “Unsupported Resolution. Max 720X576”.

    Now I have an avi file that I would like to convert to a supported size. In fact I already did but when I play it on my tv it doesn’t fill the whole screen. I can adjust output on the player but this seems to change the aspect and looks funny. Also video quality isn’t a dream. I would like to know how to make the best of things.

    So here’s my questions :

    1. Which settings to use so that it fills the whole screen?
    2. Which settings best suit my tv?
    3. What makes for good quality? Higher bitrate? Different resolution?
    4. Fps is set at 25. Should I change this?

    Here’s some information about the material I’m using.

    The Television :

    Panasonic TX-P42-C3E (this is an HD Ready tv)
    Aspect Ratio 16:9, 106 cm diagonal
    Number of pixels 786,432 (1,024 (W) X 768 (H))
    This implies it has rectangular pixels, see my other thread in the Newbie subforum https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/364058-Unsupported-video-resolution .
    3,072 x 768 dots (whatever that may mean)

    The mediaplayer :


    Lacie Lacinema Classic (again : NOT the HD version which is newer and better)
    Here’s the manual http://www.lacie.com/download/manual/lacinema_classic_en.pdf

    The container needs to be avi ‘cause it doesn’t support anything else. Also see my other thread or the manual.

    The converting tool :

    I’m using Any Video Converter for the conversion. I prefer to stick to this and would prefer not to spend extra cash or time on buying or installing another tool. Especially since I think that with the right settings it would do the trick nicely.

    Thanks already!

    D.
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  2. I'm a MEGA Super Moderator Baldrick's Avatar
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    1. 16:9, 720x408 pixels or 720x576 with 16:9 display aspect ratio. But I would use same aspect ratio as your video source to avoid any cropping.

    3. Try use constant quality xvid encoding. I'm not sure if any video converter supports that. Or else use about same bitrate as your video source. You will always lose quality by reconverting anyway.

    4. Use same fps the video source.
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  3. Member
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    Thanks Baldrick for the quick answer.

    There's a "keep aspect" box that can be checked or unchecked. Does this mean of the original video? So best is not to check this?
    Comparison is the thief of joy. (T. Roosevelt)
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  4. Member Cornucopia's Avatar
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    I know you are trying to be a good VH citizen by creating a new thread and all, but I would have answered your other thread just as likely.

    You live in Belgium, so that is PAL-land. Meaning the native framerate is 25Fps (50 fields per second when interlaced) and occasionally 50Fps. Which means you should try to stick with that whenever possible. You may, however, come across files that are NTSC-based (29.97, 59.94). You can elect to change them into PAL framerates, or not, as much of the equipment in PAL countries are still able to play NTSC material (though sometimes through strange methods).

    If you elect to change the framerate from/to NTSC, I would direct you first to check out some of the many threads here on that subject. There are multiple methods to do the conversion and each have their pluses & minuses.

    If you also occasionally find 23.976 or 24Fps material, if it isn't already supported by your equipment (which, as above, it may be), the best method to convert THAT to PAL-type is to speed up the timebase (without re-encoding), though you likely WILL have to do a time-compress process on the audio to maintain sync (which WOULD require re-encoding of the audio).

    ******************************

    Because that LaCinema player can only do SD material, it is your choice to go one of 3 ways with the resolution:

    1. Encode to anamorphic (aka Non-square) pixels and make full use of the standard max SD resolution, by squeezing a 16:9 image into the 720x576 (5:4 SAR) frame. As long as the player can recognize & support the DAR flag, you can encode your Xvid/DivX and play it out that way, as the player will do the appropriate stretching to restore the image on the screen. If it can't, however (or if you don't want to be stuck with non-square pixelled files for use in you NEXT media player, which may NOT support them), you will have to try one of 2 options using square pixels.
    2. Try to see if the player accepts a larger horizontal dimension than 720. For example, a 16:9 image that had max vertical dimension of 576 ought to have a horizontal dimension of 1024. It could be that your device would halt with an image with a V of over 576, but might still be ok with an image AT 576v but going over in the H dimension. If that doesn't work, your next option is:
    3. Try a 720x405 square-pixelled image. Because of the mod16 bias of most encoders, it probably makes better sense to use 720x400, though.

    ***************************

    The keep aspect box could mean a couple of things, but I would hope they mean "take into account the original DAR when resizing to square pixels". You can only truly find out by trying the same clip with both options. I'm guessing this is one way one could make a non-square pixelled image, but don't know if it would correctly add the DAR flag.

    ***************************

    As helpful background, you should know that the AVI container format (and by extension the Divx format) doesn't really explicitly support non-square pixels. It DOES, but in a stupid, roundabout way that very few apps will honor, so it is rarely used. What happens most times is that the video stream codec has its OWN flag for PAR or DAR that is explicitly supported (which is what is used in DV, and in MP4/Xvid/DivX, and in h.264 encodings), so as long as the app can check for that, it should be able to support non-square pixels, even in AVIs.

    ***************************

    BTW, 3072 x 768 dots is the same thing as 1024x768 pixels. 3 dots (red, green, blue) make up 1 pixel. This is just the manufacturer trying to inflate their specs.

    Don't let the rectangular pixels in the monitor confuse you with the need, or not, for there to be non-square pixels in the image. The player and the TV should be able to make the correct adjustment, based on how you set up your encode (based on that 2nd section).

    As this is an older, lower powered SD-only device, your quality won't be that great on an HD-type monitor, no matter what you do. But you can optimize things with the suggested settings, and using sufficient bitrate should get you as close as possible. Using a bitrate equivalent to the source or maybe slightly higher is a good start. Or, as Baldrick suggested, use constant quality encoding, and live with whatever bitrate appears based on your quality choices.

    Scott
    Last edited by Cornucopia; 28th Apr 2014 at 13:31.
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  5. Member
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    Hi Scott and all,

    Sorry for the really long delay in my response. I was going to reply but then weekend from hell started including nephew breaking his arm, brand new frying pan breaking down when first used, central heating system going berserk so we had to turn it off, 1 child almost breaking her neck when falling off her bike and the other one spending most of Saturday vomiting ... and the sink leaking water into the kitchen. By Sunday evening we were in serious need of a drink and my wife broke off the cork of a bottle of porto, haha. I’m not making this up, I swear!

    Anyway, I spent most of my lunchbreak Friday reading all this very interesting information and have already successfully put some of it into practice. Any Video Converter only seems to support fixed resolutions, there’s a dropdown menu from which one has to choose. A resolution of 720x576 with a bitrate of 1024 (slightly more than the original and also from a limited and fixed set of choices), resulted in acceptable quality. Kinda like analog tv which is not at all bad considering my equipment.

    I’m not going to do this very often but I will experiment some more. If I come across anything interesting I’ll update this thread.

    Thanks a lot,

    D.
    Comparison is the thief of joy. (T. Roosevelt)
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  6. Member Cornucopia's Avatar
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    Ahh, kids!

    Enjoy & Good luck,

    Scott
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