anamorphic SVCDs??

[Gruson]

I own a 65" 16x9 HDTV and my DVD player will support SVCDs. I have made many VCDs before but never a SVCD.

Is it possible to make an SVCD "enhanced," 16x9?

I would love to take advantage of the extra resolution. Please let me know and thanks.

I was going to do a search on the forum but could not figure out how.....sorry if this has been asked before.

[Gruson]

I guess I should also ask, what software do you guys typically use to make enhanced SVCDs? I usually use Nero for my VCDs and just wanted to know the ins and outs of making an enhanced SVCD with Nero or another program.

Thanks

[dirk67]

Hi,

I do anamorphic VCDs with Smartripper, DVD2AVI, TMPGEnc. I don't know the exact settings, but I can look them up at home. Something like "full...". I have a 4:3 TV with a 16:9 mode. I have to set this mode manually when I watch an anamorphic VCD. It has nothing to do with authoring, only with encoding.

Dirk

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: dirk67 on 2001-12-18 09:14:03 ]</font>

[Gruson]

Interesting. Let's say I wanted to burn the new Star Wars trailer. I assume I would have to export the QT file to an AVI file. I would then have to encode that AVI file to a MPEG2 file. Now, here is where I am lost. How do I make that file 16x9. Do I need to encode it somehow that makes it being 16x9? Or, can TMPEnc. burn it at 16x9?

I have a feeling this is going to take a while to figure out

Thanks for your help.

[SupaCoopa]

Gruson, it's actually easier than it seems if you know your way around TMPEnc.

In TMPEnc there are two "aspect ratio" settings, one for source and one for final video. These are controlled at the "setting" menu and you'll probably have to load the "unlock" template first.

First set "aspect ratio" found in "video" tab to "16:9 Display". Then you'll find the original video (source) aspect ratio in "advanced" tab. If you have a QT or DivX source this will probably has to be 1:1 VGA. You then go directly below to "video arrange method". You'll have to experiment with this a bit, generally you have to set it to "no margin (keep aspect ratio)".

The above are effective for both VCD and SVCD. After setting everything up, encode as usual and burn as usual and you'll get an "anamorphic" (S)VCD.

Hope this helps.

[dirk67]

I don't have experience with encoding DivX material, I'm doing rips of DVDs.
I'm using SmartRipper, DVD2AVI and TMPGEnc 12j to make anamorphic VCDs. The relevant settings in TMPGEnc are Settings->Video->Aspect Ratio "4:3 625 Line Pal", Settings->Advanced->Source Aspect Ratio "4:3 625 Line Pal" and Settings->Advanced->Video Arrange Method "Full Screen (Keep Aspect Ratio)". The trick is to completely ignore the 16:9 format of the source and to treat it as 4:3. Thus you get the same egg-heads as in the anamorphic source, which are shrunk vertically (or stretched horizontally) by the 16:9 TV. These anamorphic VCDs cannot be watched on a 4:3 TV without 16:9 mode. You would always get the egg heads.
Remember that the method I described keeps the aspect ratio of the source DVD. This means you get anamorphic VCDs only for anamorphic source DVDs. It does not work for Letterbox DVDs where the source contains the black bars on top and bottom. To get anamorphic VCDs out of Letterbox DVDs you would have to crop the black the bars and do some resizing. But since here in Germany nearly all movie DVDs (well, at least those I came across yet) are anamorphic, I haven't had this problem yet.

[Gruson]

What do I put in for the size with TMPGEnc? I would think 480x480 would be out of proportion, (since the file I want to convert is 640x 272) Nero seems to always say my "streams" are invalid.

I will try the "no margin" option too. Thanks guys.

[dirk67]

@gruson,

you have to enter SVCD resolution of course, which is 480x480 for NTSC. It is unlikely that your player will play another resolution. This is the "outside" resolution. TMPGEnc takes care of distributing the image pixels inside this resolution.

[shardison]

http://geocities.com/wunder01au/widescreen.html