Stretching 4:3 cartoon width so it plays on only 85% of 16:9 display?

[amiableakuma]

See topic. I think a lot of people would be interested in doing this. I want to be able to stretch the width of my 4:3 cartoons and other shows only slightly so that the picture's sides get extended about halfway through the left and right black bars but not all the way. This way your 4:3 shows take up more of your display's yardage in a cool way but don't distort/strech the picture so much that it looks wierd.

How can I do this? Without compromising too much detail or picture quality/resolution?

I imagine it may be a problem because if you try to play a file on a display or DVD player the internal firmware/whatever often sort of "demands" that the screen display a picture that is either set in a 4:3 "box" or a 16:9 "box". In other words, it seems most displays aren't capable of showing like a 8:3 style video - if you get my drift. Seems displays can't handle any widths that aren't either the the standard 4:3 width or the 16:9 width - and will stretch them if they are not.

Specifically what I'd like to do is take a 4:3 DVD, rip it, then turn it into a digital file that I can play with a slightly wider picture width.

What I'd really like this for is to play 4:3 digital video files (ripped from DVD first) on my Creative Zen Vision:W portable media player but with a wider viewing frame. I don't want to just be forced to strech it all the way to 16:9. By the way if it helps - the max display resolution for this Zen player is 480x272 and the physical screen size is 4.3 inches. Just like the PSP.

Please, let me know what you suggest. I've tried several things myself to no avail.

I'm hoping that a simple solution might exist for this in Virtualdub/Mod or hopefully even earlier in the VOB conversion process with AutoGK...okay, thanks...

[guns1inger]

You have a choice. Leave it 4:3 and live with the pillarboxing (my preferred solution), or resize it to your desired width, add the black vertical bars yourself, and re-encode as 16:9.

Virtualdub's resize filter is probably a good place to start playing, as it can add borders as required to maintain your (weird) aspect ratio.

Honestly, I think you are p!55ing in the wind, but if you think partial distortion is better than no distortion, go for it.

[amiableakuma]

^^^Yeah, I hear what you're saying - and appreciate the reply. After having posted the OP and played around a bit more last night I began to realize your conclusion myself as well. Seems that as you suggest the negatives far outwiegh the marginal benefits.

I remember that a while back I stumbled on an accidental and *somewhat* easy way to do what I suggested using TMPG also - but the only way that even worked was by losing noticeable quality, physically burning it to DVD, and then having a very specific DVD player that stretched 4:3 in a different way.

Using VirtualDub and going through the motions you mentioned to be able to have a whole new digital file with a viewing picture of "8:3" set in a 16:9 "pillarbox" - that would actually get it all to work correctly - suddenly makes my goal all the more easy to just get over a forget about. Beyond all the time wasted to figure it out, do it for every 4:3 show I would watch, etc - I'd probably also maybe have to put the file through more than one compression/conversion process to get it right each time - further decreasing the quality.

Like you said, it's sort of a pooch-screw - best to just get over. The real solution to my problem is probably as simply as just sitting closer to the screen and remembering to smile.

[Cornucopia]

You could always get a DVD player that has a (good) ZOOM function, and then zoom in to ~120%. It would crop a little of top and bottom, but the sides would be very close to the edge. Resize quality would be dependent upon chipset/algorithm in the hardware...


Scott