Annoying AVI to DVD ratio problem...long read!

[bananadude]

This is long one, but I couldn't see a way to shorten it!

I am converting some TV episodes from AVI to DVD. I have, up till now, been doing this easy enough with WinAVI Video Converter, but for some reason I have a file that doesn't want to work with it, and besides, WinAVI doesn't let me add my own menus which I want to do.

I have Adobe Encore DVD and have used this to create some cool menus/DVDs recently, so I'm using that. However, I now have a problem with the screen ratio issue and PAL vs NTSC.

I am using Cinema Craft Encoder to convert the AVI clips to MPEG, and then taking them into Encore (after multiplexing them with TMPGEnc). However, for some strange reason, these mpegs are seen by Encore as being in NTSC format due to the fact that I set the FPS to 23.96. When set to 25 or 29.97, the audio and video were out of sync (yet they are accepted in a PAL project then). The TV eps I have are from the US (I am in UK) so are from an NTSC source, if this is relevant.

When I bring these mpegs into Encore, it will only let me do so for an NTSC project, not a PAL one, and then when I burn the DVD, the screen proportions are out. When I have PAL project and use the mpegs that are out of sync, the screen proportions are as they should be.

As I understand it, NTSC is 720x480, and PAL is 720x576, and that is why the screen proportion is wrong. Why can't I create PAL compatible MPEGS, which are in sync and will be seen with the correct screen ratio when I play them on my tv?

I know this SHOULD work somehow, as it has worked with WinAVI with clips from the same source, but for some reason I cannot see a way to preserve the screen proportions and burn this DVD with Encore with my own menus! Help.

This is a rather unique problem I think, but if anyone can help it would be much appreciated. Thanks...

[guns1inger]

What is your source ? If your source is 23.976 then it is NTSC, regardless of resolution. If you change the fps to 25 (the only legal framerate for PAL DVD), your audio will be out by around 4%. In other words, you need to load it into an audio editor and reduce it by 4%.

Again, assuming your source is 23.976, you are better off leaving it at that framerate, running DGPulldown over the encoded video file, and using the tagged output for authoring. This will give you NTSC without audio sync problems. If you still have sync problems, then it is the way you are demuxing that is the issue.

I would suggest that encore won't accept your 23.976 because you haven't applied pulldown flags to the file. It will accept 29.976 because pulldown isn't required, however if you have set your project to be PAL, encore will transcode the assets to 25fps to comply with PAL specs.

Give us the specs of the sourve avi's so we have a better idea of what you are doing.

[bananadude]

Yes, it is 23.976 fps. I knew this actually, so I knew why it was out of sync when I made it 25 or 29 fps.

I can get a 23.976 fps NTSC mpeg without audio problems. CCE does a good job of making the mpeg and then I can bring it into a NTSC Encore project, but not a PAL one.

It's the screen ratio thing that is then the problem. An NTSC DVD doesn't look right on my TV. I am assuming this is because it is 720x480, and not 720x576 as it needs to be (or vice versa). The PAL DVD's I have produced do look right on my TV, but the audio is out of sync (due to the frame rate being wrong).

So basically, I think I need to create a 23.976 fps MPEG (or a 25 fps one that is in sync) that is 720x576 and that I can bring into a PAL Encore project. Or stick with NTSC and solve the screen ratio problem, which would mean resizing i guess?

I have included the Gspot info on my file below, if this helps.

[midnightsun]

assuming the source is progressive (as it should reasonably be), then resize to 720x576, encode at 16:9 AND 23.976f/s (no pulldown applied, this is crucial, you must not encode at 25f/s), and run the encoded mpeg-2 video through dgpulldown with the setting 23.976->25f/s enabled (if no such option exists type it manually). This way you'll get a perfectly compliant mpeg-2 PAL video having the same running time as the source (i.e. no need to mess with audio speedups or other tricky stuff)

I would personally use avisynth to do the framerving task, but you can live without it.

PS of course you will have to convert the audio to some dvd compliant format like mp2 or ac3.

[bananadude]

Thanks. Sounds good. What prog should I use to resize to 720x576?

[guns1inger]

Avisynth is fastest, virtualdub is easiest. For PAL 4:3 it should be 720 x 444 in a 720 x 576 frame. If you want 16:9 you will have to trim the source slightly first. And if you use virtualdub, frameserve to your encoder, don't save as an avi first.

[midnightsun]

Guns1inger, why trim the source? His file has a PAR of 1.77 (=16/9) already, all he has to do is resize to dvd resolution and set the DAR flag at 16:9. Simple as that.

@bananadude: update to the latest gspot, it's more advanced now

[bananadude]

OK, thanks for all this so far. I have come up against a slight problem though.

When I try to encode my mpeg with CCE, it refuses to create a 720x576 23.976fps MPEG. Should it not do this, seeing as I loaded my Avisynth script into CCE, which clearly says it should be 720x576?

Or am I going about this the wrong way? I do like CCE as it's so much faster than TMPGEnc and any other similar prog I've used, but this has got me stumped.

My Avisynth script is below. I extracted the wav file with Virtualdub prior to this.

clip=AVISource("xxx.avi", False)
aud=WAVSource("xxx.wav")
AudioDub(clip,aud)
ResampleAudio(48000)
LanczosResize(720,576)

As I understand it, I drop this file into the CCE window, do all the settings (i think i've got these right) and it should work. But it doesn't. I ran DGPulldown on the encoded file, which worked fine, but I ended up with a 25fps mpeg at 720x480.

Am i missing something?

[guns1inger]

16:9 is 1.78, so there will be vertical compression of the image

[midnightsun]

yeah let's fire up some basic math:

624/352=1.7727272727
16/9=1.77777777

so let's see....

((16/9)-(624/352))/(624/352)=0.002849 aka 0.2849%, that sure is a severe picture distortion

[midnightsun]

bananadude: I'm no CCE expert, but do you by any chance have any of the DVD templates loaded? If so, CCE wants you to create a NTSC DVD compliant file, since it sees a 23.976f/s framerate. Try disabling that if this is the case.

[guns1inger]

midnightsun - thatnks for showing you have basic arithmetic nailed. It may not be much of a difference, but the reason bananadude is going through this crap is because is because of image distortion. It might not matter to you, but I would crop to make sure it was correct.

bananadude - the reason you were getting distrotion will be your resize calculations. They would not have been taking pixel aspect ratio into account. Pixels are differently shaped for different formats, and different between 4:3 and 16:9 within the same format. If you calculate your resize based ons quare pixels you will get distortion. In the time you have taken to get this far you could have quite easily converted your NTSC video to NTSC DVD, watched, and moved onto the next one.

[bananadude]

CCE seems to default to 720x480 or 720x576 depending which of the fps options you select - i.e 720x480 for 23.976fps and 720x576 for 25fps. There is a 'resize' box, but this is always greyed out. There seems no way to force it to be 720x576 if you select 23.976fps.

There are DVD templates in CCE you are right, but the moment you change the fps settings it changes the screen setting. I can't see a way to disable this so I can create it 23.976fps and 720x576.

I can create a 25fps 720x480 mpeg (by using DGpulldown), so why not a 720x576 one?

I was happy to stick with NTSC by the way, but I could never see a way to get this to work without the distortion. The problem always came down to Encore as it will only accept either a 720x480 23.976fps NTSC mpeg, or a 720x576 25fps PAL one. And 720x480 always gives me distortion.

I am well aware the time I have spent on this is crazy. I'm very stubborn and the kind of person who doesn't give up easily though, and it really bugs me this isn't working when I'm sure there is a way to do it!

[guns1inger]

The frame size is fixed at 720x480, but the image can be any size inside this. It's just a matter of getting that size right. Grab my resize calculator (link in my sig) and give it a whirl. I use virtualdubmod to resize (although I'm starting to play with avisynth) and frameserve. Brief instructions are in the download. I feed this to CCE and never have a problem.

[bananadude]

OK, I've got the calculator. Seems easy enough and it gave me a new target res of 720x444.

However, I am unsure what to do with this info from within Virtualdub. I can access the resize filter, but after changing these settings what do i do? This may be a stupid question.

What do you mean by "I use virtualdubmod to resize and frameserve." I am unsure what is meant by frameserve. How exactly do i "feed it to CCE"? Can i do it with Avisynth and my previous script, as I just dropped the Avisynth script into the CCE window before.

[Abond]

Use FitCD, load the source, select the target and you will have ready to use avisynth script. For cropping select "accurate".

[bananadude]

Well that didn't work. Clearly someone or something doesn't want me to do this. Maybe I wronged the DVD Gods in a previous life or something. The fact that this should be so hard is beyond me. I'm not an idiot, I have some knowledge of things and a bit of common sense. This defies all logic if you ask me...

[bananadude]

OK, I got to thinking on this.

When I created a DVD with WinAVI Video Converter it worked perfectly. Picture quality wasn't fantastic, but it got the screen proportions right. So I went back to this DVD file which I still had on my hd and multiplxed the vob to get an mpeg. I wanted to see what it was that made it right, as the ones that I make are clearly wrong.

I put both mpegs into the FitCD programme and the 2 screenshots below are the results. Now, both seem virtually identical, except for a couple of minor details.

The first screenshot is of the mpeg I created that DOESN'T have the correct screen proportions. The second is of the one that does.

The Avisynth script I used to create the mpeg that DOESN'T have the correct screen proportions is as follows;

# -= AviSynth v2.0.8.0 script by FitCD v1.2.4 =-
AVISource("N:\24\24 DVD4\e13\24_04x13.avi")
BicubicResize(688,400,0,0.6,10,0,604,352)
AddBorders(16,40,16,40)
#Trim(0,62504).FadeOut(150)

I'm guessing this is wrong somehow, as when I encode the mpeg with CCE, it still gives me the wrong screen proportions when I create my DVD.

[guns1inger]

That's a pretty old version of avisynth you are running.

I don't see much difference betwen the two, but the comparison is of dubious value as both have been encoded to the same size, and FitCD doesn't tell you anything about the viewable area.

Can you show us a screen shot of FitCD with your actual source video loaded, so we can see how it is setup. A screen shot of the distorted mpeg would be nice as well.

[bananadude]

Below is screenshot of actual source avi loaded into FitCD.

Somehow, when WinAVI Video Converter makes the DVD vob files from the avi's, it does the job perfect. Must be magic!

I cannot really show a shot of the distorted mpeg, as it is more of a problem on my tv. With the WinAvi created DVD I still have to use the zoom button on my tv to see it dead right, but with all the ones I've done so far, it's distorted no matter what I try. I notice that it seems more squashed on the horizontal with the WinAvi created one, but stretched with the ones i've done. Not sure if this means anything.

[Abond]

Weell,wait a minute. Between the resizing in the last screenshot and the script posted before there is difference in 48 pixels - no wonder you have stretched picture. I am sure WinAvi is using similar algo for resizing the source.

[bananadude]

So what do I do exactly to fix the problem? Is it in the Avisynth script?

[Abond]

Yes.
The script that give you not right aspect ratio:
]# -= AviSynth v2.0.8.0 script by FitCD v1.2.4 =-
AVISource("N:\24\24 DVD4\e13\24_04x13.avi")
BicubicResize(688,400,0,0.6,10,0,604,352)
AddBorders(16,40,16,40)
#Trim(0,62504).FadeOut(150)
Now with accurate croping - resizing you have:
]# -= AviSynth v2.0.8.0 script by FitCD v1.2.4 =-
AVISource("N:\24\24 DVD4\e13\24_04x13.avi")
BicubicResize(688,352,0,0.6,10,0,624,350)
AddBorders(16,64,16,64)
#Trim(0,62504).FadeOut(150)
I think the last is the right one.

[bananadude]

OK, I did that and ran it through CCE, then multiplexed to get the mpeg. However, there is a fairly thick green line down the right hand side now, but outside the picture in the black edge. It shows up when I play the mpeg in Windows Media Player and Power DVD. I am not sure if this will show up when I burn the DVD and play it on my TV, as you don't usually see a black edge on a TV screen, but I didn't want to waste a disc to find out. Any idea what this is, and if it's something that can be removed (or if it needs to be)?

[bananadude]

I took the plunge and burned the DVD to see if it worked.

AMAZING! It actually does! Who'd have thought it would be something so simple?! Well, it always is I guess. Thanks very much!

I now hope this thread will be an education to others...