Widescreen VHS to DVD

[NiVZ]

Hi folks,

I'm putting a video of a friends band from VHS tape onto DVD. He shot it with a camcorder in widescreen, but on the VHS tape he's given me it's square screen but everything is tall and thin. Switching the TV to 16:9 aspect ratio adds the black borders and I get the correct picture.

So my question is - how do I capture this so I an make a widescreen DVD?

I have done a good few catures, but they've all been 4:3. I normally use Virtual Dub to capture, TMPGEnc to encode and DVDIt PE to author.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

NiVZ.

[offline]

In virtualdub crop the black bits and in Tmpgenc choose manual resize to un squeeze the picture. You might even be better off (quality wise) resizing the screen via frame serve to tmpgenc 1st.

[NiVZ]

Hi offline, thanks for the reply, but I'm afraid there are no black borders on the VHS tape. The video is 16:9 but has been stretched to fill the whole screen making everyone look tall and thin.

NiVZ.

[offline]

even better.. with a squeezed full screen you gain picture quality.

Under setings with tmpgenc, with both the Video and Advanced tab, set source as 16:9 and set screen as 16:9. Encode as usual and load in any dvd authoring s/ware as a 16:9 mpeg-2 video. Easy peasy..

[proton]

What you are telling about is anamorphic video.
Keep it squeezed and use your TV to adjust the picture.
The Anamorphic system gives you better quality picture. If you
adjust the video to normal widescreen with black border, you'll
loose picturequality.

[NiVZ]

Thanks for the replies guys. I think I'm sorted for the TMPGEnc stuff now, but what about the actual capture?

Do I just use VirtualDub to capture the squeezed image to a 720x576 (PAL) AVI and then feed that into TMPGEnc as a 16:9?

Cheers,

NiVZ.

[yodel]

even better.. with a squeezed full screen you gain picture quality.

Under setings with tmpgenc, with both the Video and Advanced tab, set source as 16:9 and set screen as 16:9. Encode as usual and load in any dvd authoring s/ware as a 16:9 mpeg-2 video. Easy peasy..

I've got a tv "transmission" that was all "stretchy" when viewed at that time too, so could i correct this, telling DVDLab it it is a 19:6 MPEG2 file ?
I'll just try this..... thanks for the hint !

[geek rock]

I've got a tv "transmission" that was all "stretchy" when viewed at that time too, so could i correct this, telling DVDLab it it is a 19:6 MPEG2 file ?
I'll just try this..... thanks for the hint !

in the UK, the satellite TV provider, SKY, broadcasts widescreen footage anamorphically. it's the same as with your DVD player really.. on the SKY box, you select "letterboxing on/off" - off if you have a WS TV, on if you have a 4:3 TV. if you select off, the full resolution of the picture will be taken up by moving images, and no pixels will be wasted with black borders.

it's always best to capture anamorphically if you can, purely because you can allocate ALL your bitrate to the moving video images.

anyway, yeah, in short, tell DVDlab your file is 16:9, and it should appear correctly.

-Mark

[NiVZ]

Thanks for all the replies guys, I've now got it working.

I captured the 'stretched' video using VirtualDub to a 352x576 AVI (using Huffy codec). Then I cut out what I didn't want and encoded using TMPGEnc to MPEG-2, 352x576, 2-pass VBR, Source 16:9, Video 16:9, Clip Frame set to Full Screen.

I've tested it in DVDIt PE and it's working fine. Just got to setup my chapters and menus and I'm done.

Thanks again,

NiVZ.

[geek rock]

Thanks for all the replies guys, I've now got it working.

I captured the 'stretched' video using VirtualDub to a 352x576 AVI (using Huffy codec). Then I cut out what I didn't want and encoded using TMPGEnc to MPEG-2, 352x576, 2-pass VBR, Source 16:9, Video 16:9, Clip Frame set to Full Screen.

I've tested it in DVDIt PE and it's working fine. Just got to setup my chapters and menus and I'm done.

Thanks again,

NiVZ.

any reason why you used 352 x 576?

as far as i'm aware, there is no option for a widescreen tag in a 352 x 576 mpeg file. widescreen/fullscreen tags are only applicable to 720 x 480/576 video streams.

so, if you want your video to be fully compliant, it's best to use that resolution for it..

-Mark

[LeedsStriker]

352 x 576 IS fully compliant

[yodel]

Well, what i got, was a failure warning; "The size of the run lenght was over 1440 bit" don't pin me down on the number, because the warning
dissapeared after a few seconds, (maybe i'll trace it back in some log)
but this is due to other reasons i guess, maybe because i edited two
captures together? did this with Studio8 (of the Gold version not yet updated)
Also i tried to "set the record straight" by using IFOEdit, on the pc it's
then 16:9 but not when viewed on a standalone...

[geek rock]

352 x 576 IS fully compliant

yes, it's a fully standard DVD resolution, but it is NOT possible to include 16:9 formatting in the standard.

http://www.mpeg.org/MPEG/DVD/Book_B/Video.html

Aspect ratio:
4:3 (all video formats)
16:9 (all formats except 352 pixels/line)

as yodel has found out, some software/standalones may be able to letterbox the files, and some may not. but, fact is, it's not in the DVD standard.

[yodel]

352 x 576 IS fully compliant

yes, it's a fully standard DVD resolution, but it is NOT possible to include 16:9 formatting in the standard.

http://www.mpeg.org/MPEG/DVD/Book_B/Video.html

Aspect ratio:
4:3 (all video formats)
16:9 (all formats except 352 pixels/line)

as yodel has found out, some software/standalones may be able to letterbox the files, and some may not. but, fact is, it's not in the DVD standard.

Okay, so there's still something we do wrong, is it possible, so to make
it fully comply with the standard ? something with Vob/IFOEdit maybe ?

[NiVZ]

Two reasons I chose 352x576:

1. Disk Space. Had other captures still to convert so not as much free disk space as usual

2. Quality. Reading all the guides it doesn't appear you gain any quality by capturing at 720 or 704 x 576 since the VHS video is so low quality anyway.

I've not authored the DVD yet, but when I play the 352x576 .mpg file back Windows Media Player is playing it widescreen as is the preview in DVDIt PE. I'll burn to a DVD+RW soon and test in my DVD player. I'll let you know what happens.

Cheers,

NiVZ.

[dphirschler]

Go ahead and double the horizontal width. That will give you 704x576 which is fully compliant. A simple pixel resize should be good enough since you are doubling the size. It will remain nice and crisp without any wierd artifacts and it should also compress well into mpeg.

You shouldn't use up any extra harddrive space if you frameserve it.


Darryl

[offline]

352 x 576 IS fully compliant

yes, it's a fully standard DVD resolution, but it is NOT possible to include 16:9 formatting in the standard.

It is possible and works fine with a number of authoring packages / DVD players, but like mpeg-2 audio on an NTSC DVD, it is not standard and therefor not recommended if you require 100% compatibility.

[NiVZ]

Hi folks,

Thanks for the informative replies once again. Think I might give it a go at 352x576 and see what happens and if it doesn't work I'll re-encode to 704x576.

I know I'd get a better result if I use the original captured AVI, but I don't fancy another 9hour encode!! Would I lose a lot / any quality if I just run the 352x576 mpg file through TMPGEnc again but tell it to double the width?

Cheers,

NiVZ.

[FulciLives]

Hi folks,

Thanks for the informative replies once again. Think I might give it a go at 352x576 and see what happens and if it doesn't work I'll re-encode to 704x576.

I know I'd get a better result if I use the original captured AVI, but I don't fancy another 9hour encode!! Would I lose a lot / any quality if I just run the 352x576 mpg file through TMPGEnc again but tell it to double the width?

Cheers,

NiVZ.

Don't re-encode a MPEG-2 from 352x480 to 720/704x480

It CAN'T make the quality better and in short would be a waste of time.

Would have to re-capture at 720/704x480 to AVI and encode again.

I mean do you want this to look good or not?

9 hours ain't that long ... start it before you go to bed.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman