Capturing Widescreen

[simonw2008]

I'm capturing old VHS video's onto a PC using a Compro VideoMate TV PVR analogue TV card. The early stuff is all 4:3 and has come accross OK and plays in 4:3 in Windows Media Player.

I've now got to the point about 5 years ago where I bought a Panasonic NV-DS35 and starting recording in widescreen. The capture card has the options of 4:3, 16:9 and 16:10 but that only seems to affect the window size you get in the capture viewer. The captured video, when played on my widescreen TV from my laptop, has black bars at the sides as well as the top and bottom.

A while ago I tried capturing direct from the camcorder and the same happened.

Can anyone explain to me whats happening please?

I would expect the black bars at the top and bottom but is there anything I can do to get rid of the bars on the left and right?

Also dark scenes which are OK when played from the video player via coax on my TV are being captured too dark whether in 4:3 or widescreen. Is this the cable or what is causing it?

Thanks
Simon

[edDV]

Is the TV you will be watching a 16:9 wide screen model or 4:3 ?

You should capture the DV format video (wide or 4:3) over an IEEE-1394 port to the computer or DVD recorder. For the computer you can add a port with PCI or PCIe or PC card format.

Use WinDV or similar software to capture the video to a DV-AVI file. This will be a digital transfer from the camcorder. From there your DVD authoring program can be set to make a 4:3 or 16:9 wide DVD.

Use VLC with video deinterlacer set to "Linear" or "Mean" to view the DV-AVI file directly on the PC. VLC will respect the aspect ratio flags and show as 16:9 wide or 4:3.

For a DVD recorder, most are limited to letterbox within 4:3 DVD output.

[simonw2008]

It a 16:9 TV but all the video I'm capturing is on VHS tapes as the original camcorder tapes were overwritten years ago. So I cant use IEEE 1394.
Im using composite video and the VHS player doesnt support S-video.
As I said, it plays fine through coax onto the TV from the VHS player i.e. in widescreen with no black bars on the left and right. I just get the bars when I capure from the VHS player onto my PC.

[2Bdecided]

You have to set the widescreen flag somewhere.

Where? It depends what software you are using, and what file format you are saving to.

btw...

all the video I'm capturing is on VHS tapes as the original camcorder tapes were overwritten years ago

- Ouch! Intentionally? Surely not?!

Cheers,
David.

[simonw2008]

Ouch - intentioanally - too much footage and not enough money

The camcorder is a Panasonic NV-DS35 which has the option to record in widescreen - but I'm wondering if it is true widescreen. As I said, it was copied to VHS on a Panasonic VHS recorder using composite video and it is now being captured using a Compro VideoMate TV PVR analogue TV card on the PC and the software which comes with it (Compro DTV3). The format I'm caturing in is Mpeg2. I cant find anything in the capture software which says capture in widescreen, but itsalready in widescreen on the VHS tape, and if I caputure new footage from the camcorder directly via windows move maker, Ulead video studio etc it does just the same.

[aedipuss]

can't be true widescreen on vhs tape. most likely 16x9 recorded as 4:3 with permanent black bars top and bottom. so go ahead and capture as 4:3.

[2Bdecided]

can't be true widescreen on vhs tape.

Of course it can! You can put anamorphic 16:9 content onto VHS as easy as anything! Lots of equipment also includes the WSS (Wide Screen Switching) flag (line 23 in PAL, lines 20 and 283 NTSC) so that TVs will display it correctly (far more common in Europe than in the USA).

However, many DV camcorders do simply add a letterbox over the top and bottom of a 4:3 frame to give "widescreen" and nothing special (i.e. nothing "widescreen") is required to handle this at all.

There are DV camcorders that do widescreen correctly (i.e. full resolution, anamorphic 16:9). I had one in 1998.


It's easy enough to tell which is which: on a TV which doesn't know what is what (e.g. an old 4:3 TV), you will see letterboxed footage if the content on tape is letterboxed, and full screen footage with tall/think people if the content on tape is anamorphic.

Cheers,
David.

[simonw2008]

On an old 4:3 TV it has small top and bottom black borders which to my bad logic implies its not widescreen and the black borders are part of the recorded picture. Surely if it was recordred in proper widesceen on an old 4:3 TV I would get tall thin people and no borders i.e. stretched to fit the screen?

...... but .....when played on a modern widescreen TV the automatic mode on the TV plays it in full screen with no borders top or bottom which to my bad logic implies it is widescreen.

Arrrrrgh - I'm totally confused with this but I'm determined to find out what's occuring.

Baffled

p.s. can I "edit" out the bars top, bottom and sides any way?

[2Bdecided]

The new TV is simply seeing the black bars and automatically cropping them. Most widescreen TVs will do that.

The black bars are on the footage. I'm surprised you describe them as "small" on the 4:3 TV - 16:9 letterboxing looks quite big on a 4:3 TV - about 1/8th of the screen at the top, and 1/8th of the screen at the bottom.


If you want to make a DVD, the simplest way is just to treat it as 4:3 footage - because that's what it is - the top and bottom just happen to be black.

If you crop the black bars off, the resolution will be incorrect for DVD, and resizing it will reduce quality further. One thing people often do is replace the existing black bars with new ones that are 100% black - then the MPEG encoder doesn't waste bits encoding any noise that was present in the original black bars.

Cheers,
David.

[thecoalman]

when played on my widescreen TV from my laptop, has black bars at the sides as well as the top and bottom.

I'd venture to guess what you have as suggested above is 16:9 on 4:3 matte, in other words the black bars on the top and bottom (letterboxing) are part of your source video. The left and right bars (pillarboxing) are probably be added by your DVD player. If the material is flagged as 4:3 for proper aspect you'd need black bars left and right for display on 16:9 TV.

They could also be added if you captured it as 16:9 as a 4:3 source if that makes any sense.

[simonw2008]

Thanks for all your help.

Its just a pain that when I played them from VHS via Coox the so called widescreen played full screen on a widescreen TV. Now I've gone to the trouble of converting to mpeg2 I get a box in the middle of the screen!

Thats progress

[themaster1]

video source: 4/3

4/3 display:
http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/8489/4343lm8.jpg

16/9 display:
http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/2200/43169yl9.jpg

----------
video source: 16/9

16/9 display:
http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/7037/169169mq2.jpg

4/3 display:
http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/2508/16943hs2.jpg


Note that the first video is "fake" 16/9 ... or 16/9 like if you prefer

I'm not sure of why this was a widespread practice in the mid ninetees but it's a bad practice if you ask me.

Maybe a couple of "monkeys" figured they could trick the average joe who just bought his new 16/9 tv back then.Transforming regular 4/3 into pseudo 16/9 . I have no idea.

[2Bdecided]

I understand the issue, and I don't find those pictures very helpful - since when did 16:9 content, viewed on a 16:9 TV, have black bars that the top and bottom?!



Cheers,
David.

[themaster1]

You're right, i should have mentioned my monitor is 4/3

[stars]

Hi....

Some hints ????

Maybee you can change the flagsettings for the video stream to 4:3 or 16:9

This can be done with restream.

If the the source is letterboxed the only thing is to re encode the video.

Or if you can use a zoom function on your tvset.

Open the video in virtualdubMOD or Virtualdub (with fchandlers plugin).
remove the blackbars at the top and botton.
rezie the video to 720x480 (NTSC) 720x576(PAL) and frameserv it to ex. HC encoder

A fullscreen video pic is 720x404 pixels 1.78:1, so if the aspect ratio is higher you will get blackbars
anyway. The blackbars at the side is nice to have because of the tvsets overscan.

and rebuild the DVD...

stars...

[thecoalman]

I understand the issue, and I don't find those pictures very helpful - since when did 16:9 content, viewed on a 16:9 TV, have black bars that the top and bottom?!.

Technically, according to what you posted so far... it appers yours does but the TV is smart enough to hide them when its played from the VHS. The TV is adjusting for it and zooming in removing them. How does it look when you view it on 4:3 TV? Black bars? If so that is what is happening.