Wrong Aspect Ratio

[boatburner]

I have an MPEG-1 file which is a half-resolution (352x240) capture of an anamorphic source. When properly displayed, the source should come up at 2.35:1.

However, in playing with the IFO files I'm able to create, I can get it to display full-frame (4:3) with tall stretched people or semi-letterboxed (1.85:1) with slightly less stretched people...

In playing with DVDPatcher to edit the VOB headers, I managed on one machine to get it to display at something akin to 2.6:1 which is now TOO squished. I'm not even sure how I managed to get that to happen since I can't duplicate it on my other machine.

It seems that the IFOedit software lets you change the DAR setting but has no affect on the VAR which should describe how wide to actually stretch the image.

Anyone know of a way to do this?

[Baldrick]

Has the 352x240 no black borders at all?

[Dennis1968]

352x240 MPEG-1 is 4:3, when converted in a DVD-Video, it was double in size upon playback to the 720x480 resolution BUT STILL be 4:3. I agree with Baldrick. How was this MPEG-1 created? Was it captured using a computer hardware device? ripped from a DVD-Video and then converted using software? The creation of this file is crucial in determing the compatibilty of your project. More details are needed.

[boatburner]

The 352x240 has no black borders at all.

I can't say much for the creation of the file - I didn't do it myself.

If you set the 16:9 flag in the IFO the DVD player will letterbox it, but at 1.85:1.

If you set the 4:3 flag in the IFO the DVD player sends it out full frame (just like when I had my first DVD-ROM drive with a Hollywood card and I hooked it up to my TV - The first gen decoder cards didn't read the aspect flag, which is how I knew to recognize what was happening with this particular clip.)

I thought one of the things the DVD player looks for is an Image Height tag, as part of the VAR information - this tells it how high the image should be and thus how much the width should be stretched. Is there no way to set this?


Alternately, I ran a copy of the extra-squished VOB files thru DVDSanta to see what it would do - it seems to have added the black around the image for the extra-large letterbox. If I could just get something to trim them to a better size I think it would work fine.

[boatburner]

Additionally, if I play the raw mpg files in VLC player and force the aspect ratio with the advanced video settings it plays fine. So that tells me there's nothing wrong with the video file itself, only with telling the player HOW to play it.

[Baldrick]

DVD only support 4:3 and 16:9. So you must reencode and add black borders to get the correct aspect ratio from the full screen 352x240,2.35:1.

With software players can you change the aspect ratio manually but not standalone dvd players.

[boatburner]

Thanks Baldrick - That's kinda what I was starting to think, since I know that when you watch a 2.35:1 feature on a 16:9 TV it still has black bars...