352x240 Anamorphic

[DJ_Izumi]

This has been an experiment I've been toying with, a 352x240 anamorphic MiniDVD. It didn't seem to radical to me, and I figured it'd technicaly fit in the DVD standard, encode a 16:9 (640x360) source into a 352x240 mpeg2 with the 16:9 flag checked (Tmpgenc)

And it works somewhat well, Software players read the disk just fine and playback correctly, however my DVD player seems to have slightly different opinions on the disk. The playback almost seems to 'vibrate', where it can't decide which line should go where, bouncing up and down by a pixel. Well, this looks a bit 'seizure-riffic' and annoying to watch, especially when the material is subtitled. When I pause, the image looks as if an entire field has been removed.

My question is: Is this probabbly most likely just related to my specfic player, meaning it just resizes poorly. Or could the 3:2 pulldown flag be making the hardware interlace this low resolution file, and this low resolution interlace makes the interlacing look much larger and visably apparent and troublesome? Or, last but not least: 352x240 anamorphic video is simply a very bad idea in general.

[Baldrick]

352x240/480/288/576 16:9 isn't dvd standard, so it is probably different from player to player.
http://www.mpeg.org/MPEG/DVD/Book_B/Video.html

[FulciLives]

Or, last but not least: 352x240 anamorphic video is simply a very bad idea in general.

BINGO :P

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[erratic]

I once tried 352x288 PAL 16:9 anamorphic (non-interlaced 25 fps). It's not DVD compliant but it worked in my DVD player. The picture was a bit too fuzzy though.

[DJ_Izumi]

Well, I guess I'll keep toying with it, it looks like it's part of the 3:2 interlacing on playback. You have to admit, this is worth a try, 352x240 'letter boxed' only yeilds 352x180 in used pixels, the remaining just filled with black blank space, this anamorphic '******* around' will hopefilly get me better quality for the resolution used.

[Ejoc]

But the video has to be 720x480 or 704?x480 for the 16:9 flag to work.

[erratic]

I guarantee you that it worked for me (352x288 PAL non-interlaced). My widescreen TV switched to 16:9 automatically, so my DVD player recognized the 16:9 flag correctly. Conclusion: it depends on your DVD player.

I think 3:2 pulldown is the problem for NTSC though. Is it possible to make a 23.976 fps progressive scan NTSC DVD without the pulldown flag? If so, what happens?

If not, you would have to convert the video to 29.97 fps and then make a non-interlaced 352x240 DVD.

[DJ_Izumi]

I'm trying to disable the 3:2 pulldown, VCD and SVCD mode don't recognise the 16:9 flag, it has to be a MinDVD, however I'm using DVD-Lap to author the test disks, and DVD-Lap continiously goes 'OH NO IT'S NOT PULLDOWN OR 29.97, LET ME CONVERT IT PLZ... OR I'LL KILL YOU!'

I hate software that dosn't allow you to play the nonstandard game.

[erratic]

Let IfoEdit make the VOB files. IfoEdit requires elementary streams, so you have to demultiplex your .mpg file first with TMPGEnc's MPEG Tools.

Run IfoEdit, select DVD Author -> Author new DVD.
Load your video and audio file.
Click OK and IfoEdit will make .IFO, .BUP and .VOB files.

Then IfoEdit still needs to correct the start sector addresses.
http://ifoedit.wh.fr0zen.com/calcsec.html
Close and restart IfoEdit (apparently closing it first is necessary).
Open one of the .IFO files it just created. Click Get VTS sectors and click OK (or just hit the Return key) several times.

Then you need software to burn the DVD folders to CD-R. I have done that with Nero but I had to let Nero make a disc image first. Nero refuses to burn DVD folders to CD-R, but it will burn any disc image. Obviously the .IFO, .BUP and .VOB files have to be in the VIDEO_TS folder.

[DJ_Izumi]

I seem to have found an interesting counter method... I think it works, I need to closer inspect the playback on the test footage a bit more. Since things that are 'to sharp' will also 'bounce' on a low definition television.

I do the resize in Vdub, then frameserv the file into TMPG, when resizing from 640x360 to 352x240 I clicked that little (mostly useless) interlace checkmark, the resulting output from Vdub looked much like what the paused image on my television looked like on the last test, one field out of place. The final play back seems to be smooth and normal.

I'll be the first to admit that this solution makes absolutly no sense to me, but hey, what works, works.

[RabidDog]

I have had a go with a similar resolution and burning as a dvd (on Cdr). If you use the tmpgenc low-res DVD template the one thing that I notice it does is make sure the apect ratio is set to 4.3. I think when you use this res for a dvd it has to be set as 4.3 to keep in with the dvd standards. ALso 352x576 works very nicely as well, (as a dvd resolution) and allows multiple audios dts and all the other dvd fiddly bits and is more likley to be player compatible than svcd. So if you cant play svcd this could be your solution.

I have seen the morphic family, anna and meta.