Decomb problem

[captainsark]

Video is only 720x480 4/3 and FPS is 59.940 and contains 6 GB for 2 hours and it needs some cropping and deinterlacing.

1. Problem: I want it to display all horizontal pixels instead of less to fit with height in aspect ratio. But setting PAR numbers in Handbrake only seem to adjust width, the height is still 480 no matter what.

2. The movie blinks in some places fx around letters and the whole top of the movie about 25 pixels in height also blinks. And it does that even with all filters turned off.

This is original: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B2zq1htyW866c2g0XzhNQ1M1cXc/edit?usp=sharing

And this is Handbrake converted: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B2zq1htyW866a280NU9jaU1ENWM/edit?usp=sharing

After trying all Handbrake settings none worked.

But one of Avidemux filters does: http://img600.imageshack.us/img600/982/avidemuxz.jpg
Settings used:
avidemux Mpeg AVC (x264)
Average Bitrate (Two Pass) 2500kbit/s
Hexagonal Search
Direct Prediction Mode Auto
Enable Weighted Prediction for B frames
Filter used: Kernel Deint. Order1 threshold:10 sharp1 twoway0 map0

Interlaced stuff is barely visible, but compression settings could maybe be better. New size is 1.39 GB of the 6 GB for 2 hours movie.

[brusno]

I believe it is the cropping which makes the width being wrong in the output file.
The cropping you did on each side, also make the picture stretched wider than it should be. Distortion.

[hello_hello]

There's a distinction which I don't think you've quite grasped yet between the resolution and display/pixel aspect ratio, which is normal as it can take a bit to get your head around it. The pixel aspect ratio is the shape of the pixels. The resolution (720x480) is the number of pixels. They have no relationship to each other aside from the fact that between the two of them they determine the overall display aspect ratio. Changing the pixel aspect ratio doesn't change the number of pixels (resolution) on it's own, only the shape of the picture. The only time the resolution and pixel aspect ratio are the one and the same is if the pixel aspect ratio is 1:1 (square pixels). DVDs make it confusing because they don't use square pixels.

Handbrake should keep the "picture" aspect ratio intact even if you crop, but it means the output aspect ratio won't always be the same as the input aspect ratio. Think of it like this. If you have a 4:3 image (regardless of the resolution) and you cut it in half by drawing a vertical line through the middle, then remove the bottom half, what's left can't still be 4:3. It's 8:3. If you stretched what's left back to 4:3 it'll be really.... err.... stretched.

The same thing happens whenever you remove some of the image, even if it's just a couple of rows of pixels from each side. The aspect ratio of what's left can't be the same without distorting the picture. If you want to return it to the original display aspect ratio without distorting it, and you've cropped the little black bars at the sides, then you must also remove an appropriate amount from the top and or bottom.
Here's an example. You've taken a 4:3, 720x480 image and removed a total of 12 pixels from the sides. What remains is 708x480 and the aspect ratio is 59:45. To make it 4:3 again, you'd need to crop a total of 8 pixels from the top and bottom. You now have a 708x472 image which is 4:3. You are of course free to resize the remaining image... you might want to resize it back to 720x480.... you could resize it to any dimensions you like, but that's when you'd change the pixel aspect ratio.... in order to maintain the 4:3 display aspect ratio.... not to take an image which is something other than 4:3 after you've cropped it to make it 4:3 again. The most basic example of changing the pixel aspect ratio is to take your 4:3 image and resize it to 640x480. As 640:480 is 4:3, the pixel aspect ratio then becomes 1:1. You could resize it to 1280x480, but for it to display as 4:3, the pixel aspect ratio would need to be 2:1.

Generally you shouldn't have to fiddle with the pixel aspect ratio at all. If you crop and/or resize an image, even while using anamorphic encoding, any decent encoding GUI will take care of that for you. If you want a specific output aspect ratio after cropping, then generally you need to crop enough so that what remains gives you the desired aspect ratio without having to distort it.

I don't know why HandBrake is making such a mess of the pixels at the top. Obviously it shouldn't. Does it do the same thing if you use it to re-encode without cropping or fiddling with the pixel aspect ratio yourself?

[captainsark]

The same thing happens whenever you remove some of the image, even if it's just a couple of rows of pixels from each side. The aspect ratio of what's left can't be the same without distorting the picture. If you want to return it to the original display aspect ratio without distorting it, and you've cropped the little black bars at the sides, then you must also remove an appropriate amount from the top and or bottom.
Here's an example. You've taken a 4:3, 720x480 image and removed a total of 12 pixels from the sides. What remains is 708x480 and the aspect ratio is 59:45. To make it 4:3 again, you'd need to crop a total of 8 pixels from the top and bottom.

I don't know why HandBrake is making such a mess of the pixels at the top. Obviously it shouldn't. Does it do the same thing if you use it to re-encode without cropping or fiddling with the pixel aspect ratio yourself?

Thanks for the reply.

The movie is 1 Part of War and Remembrance. I'm looking forward to see some historic action like in "Band of Brothers". Apparently others couldn't deinterlace it either. So now I've fetched 50 GB of the whole story and Avidemux deinterlaced the first part perfectly even with cropping 8 and 4 on the sides. I haven't tried Handbrake without the cropping, but I tried all it filters and 4 different codecs.

The movie is now 708x480 4/3