Why does resolution change in handbrake with "keep aspect ratio" checked?

[jagabo]

I'm still struggling with this. What is the point of resizing to 640x428 (which is what handbrake shows which I have anamorphic to none and modulus to 4) All it does is make the video smaller. Why not just keep it at 720x480 and give the customer a bigger video?

What's the DAR or SAR of the source? 720x480 is almost always 4:3 or 16:9 DAR.

[sdsumike619]

I don't know what those acronym stand for. As I think I said earlier in the thread these are standard 4: 3 ntsc 720 x 480 DVDs

[jagabo]

DVDs are always either 16:9 or 4:3 DAR (display aspect ratio, the final shape of the picture) including any black bars used to pad the frame when the movie's aspect ratio does not match the DVD aspect ratio (eg, a 2.35:1 movie on a 16:9 DAR DVD). But that DAR information may be lost in processing. For example, if you filter in AviSynth and save as a huffyuv AVI file. If you use Handbrake directly on the IFO/VOB set it should handle the video correctly.

[sdsumike619]

So, do I need to change it from 720x480 in handbrake to 640 by something? I really don't see any difference in the way the video looks just that the 720 is bigger than the 640 one.

[sdsumike619]

Ok, so set Anamorphic to None

Set Modulus to 2

Set the width to 656, or 640? 656 automatically makes the height to 438. 640 makes the height 426.

Regarding decomb, since these are NTSC standard DVDs, I know they are all interlaced. Should I still use decomb set to default, or should I use deinterlace set to...?

EDIT: I actually just tried this, it can't be right. The person in the video is squished looking, something is way way off with the instructions given above. Advise anyone reading this not to follow these instructions. Have to dig deeper now...

[Caiosouza]

My God, was it hard to say the best option to scan the DVD's? A simple question became a war of almost useless possibility for the case.

I myself was left in doubt, let the handbrake resize or maintain the original resolution???????

Please be more objective!

[hello_hello]

I haven't scanned through the thread to refresh my memory, but I remember a discussion taking place. I'm not sure about a war. Anyway, it goes something like this:

- Anamorphic Strict is technically the best quality method. Nothing is resized, the video is encoded "as is" (any filtering aside), the aspect ratio is set when encoding and the encoded version should be stretched to the correct aspect ratio on playback, just as it would for the original DVD. Not all hardware players support anamorphic video in an MKV or MP4 though, and might ignore the aspect ratio and display the video as though it has square pixels. You need to test your player to make sure anamorphic encodes display correctly.

- Next best would be Anamorphic None to resize to square pixels and the correct display aspect ratio without resizing the height. I think Handbrake can do that now. If you're encoding a 720x576 16:9 PAL DVD, you'd resize it to 1024x576 for encoding using Anamorphic None. For a 720x480 16:9 NTSC DVD it's around 854x480. Chances are Handbrake's auto-cropping will remove a few pixels of crud from the top and bottom or the sides, but the same principle applies. Handbrake will calculate the correct width according to the height you specify (or the other way around). If you adjust one, Handbrake should adjust the other..

- Third best is resizing both the width and height while resizing to square pixels (anamorphic none). The more you reduce the resolution, the more detail you can potentially loose.