Display streatched vertically

[anindyanuri]

My camera is a PAL standard DVD camera. I took pictures in the 16:9 widescreen mode. What is the width and height of my picture?

I am asking this because, while I am downloading my raw DVD discs to my computer hard disc (I am using AutoGK tool and the Advanced Settings->Output Resolution Settings is set to AUTO Width). The resulting picture automatically creating two black borders at Left and Right (instead of Top and Bottom in the original DVD) and thus the picture is seemed to be vertically streatched.

How do I solve this? Very new in this field. Please guide me.

[nic2k4]

I have the same problem with a Sony. The problem is caused by the way they implemented 16:9 in the camera, in fact everything they did is done wrong they don't follow the DVD specs. Anyway, all I do to fix this is open the IFO for the track ( not VIDEO_TS.IFO) in Ifoedit and change the aspect ratio to Letterbox. You do that by double clicking the aspect ratio value (should show Pan&Scan at first).

[anindyanuri]

nic2k4 thank you for your reply. but would you please help me how do I open the IFO of the track?

[anindyanuri]

Yes, I have found the IFO of the track. But the problem is that it is written on my DVD disc. Should I copy the DVD to my hard disc first and then go for changing the IFO?

[manono]

Don't you first put the DVD on the hard drive anyway, when planning on using AutoGK? Anyway, you can change the setting that AutoGK uses for this by opening the DVD in AutoGK and then going into Hidden Options (CTRL-F9), checking "Override Input AR", and then ticking whichever AR you like.

[anindyanuri]

Yes, I put the DVD on the hard drive at the beginning. But I am not able to use the Hidden Option. It is opening while I press CTRL+F9. Now I am checking Override Input AR..... the AR was in 16:9 previously and that is why I am not changing that. As soon as I am pressing OK... it shows an error message which tells that, "Cannot create file E:\VIDEO_TS\.aspect. Access is denied."
It should be because E: is the DVD drive itself. It would not give permission to change its original files.

What mistake I am still doing?

[anindyanuri]

Source Aspect Ratio : 4:3

That is seemed to be the main culprit. I just have found it in the log file it creates. The source aspect ratio should be 16:9.

Now what should I do? I am in dark and need your help.

[manono]

Hi-

The resulting picture automatically creating two black borders at Left and Right (instead of Top and Bottom in the original DVD) and thus the picture is seemed to be vertically streatched.

AutoGK doesn't add black bars to the right and left. Your player is doing that. To find what AutoGK did to your picture, open the final AVI in VDub(Mod) and have a look. Do you still see black bars? Is the picture still stretched?

Source Aspect Ratio : 4:3

That is seemed to be the main culprit.

My guess is that it really is 4:3. Do you have a small sample you can upload somewhere, an untouched sample of the source? Preferably something that shows any stretching easily. People are OK, usually.

[anindyanuri]

The sample uploaded to mediafire, the link of it is:

http://www.mediafire.com/?e20rvyllyme

Please take a look at it.

[anindyanuri]

One more information:

If I play the original DVD in VLC media Player or Windows Media Player, it plays the stream correctly without streatching the picture.

[45tripp]

you haven't uploaded the clip.

upload the m2v

[anindyanuri]

sorry

The .m2v file...

http://www.mediafire.com/?tjdvmgldxoc

hope this helps

[poisondeathray]

The aspect ratio flag has not been set properly in your sample.

You should read about Non-square pixels and Display Aspect Ratio flag. This is not a problem, you can just tell the encoder to encode with the proper PAR or DAR setting.

Display Aspect Ratio = Frame Aspect Ratio x Pixel Aspect Ratio
DAR = FAR x PAR

Your PAL FAR is 720/576, this doesn't change unless you resize the frame.

5/4 = 720/576 x 1/1
4/3 = 720/576 x 16/15
16/9 = 720/576 x 64/45

Most software will display according to the DAR (not always, it depends on the specific software and sometimes the filters/splitters/codecs installed, and sometimes the specific container). WMP usually ignores the DAR flag in most containers. VLC and Mplayer usually acknowledge the appropriate DAR setting

In the 1st case, 720x576 will get displayed as 720x576 - resulting in the 5/4 aspect ratio
In the 2nd case, 720x576 will get displayed as 768x576 - resulting in the 4/3 aspect ratio
In the 3rd case, 720x576 will get displayed as 1024x576 - resulting in the 16/9 aspect ratio

DAR 5/4


DAR 4/3


DAR 16/9 (this has been resized, the 1024 width cannot display properly on VideoHelp, so save the image to desktop)


I don't use AutoGK, so I can't help you with settings. Assuming you wanted the DAR 16/9 output, If you were to use XviD using vdub, you would set the DAR to 16:9. In XviD using avidemux, you set the PAR to 64/45. (You might want to deinterlace as well, if your goal is XviD .avi)

[minidv2dvd]

what is it you want to do with the bad files? convert to an avi of some sort or make them into a dvd with the proper aspect ratio displayed? what is your desired final format?

[anindyanuri]

@ poisondeathray
Thanks a lot. I didn't know the above technicals behind this. It is really a good lesson for me. Not only that, I think I could not understand the subject unless you explain the matter with the real life example.

Now, I have to do my job using avidemux.

Endless thanks for your nice way of teaching those complex things with ease.

lots of love from India

[anindyanuri]

what is it you want to do with the bad files? convert to an avi of some sort or make them into a dvd with the proper aspect ratio displayed? what is your desired final format?

Actually I want to edit this movie and the final output will be again encoded into DVD which will enable me to view that either in PC or in a standalone DVD player.

[poisondeathray]

Many standalone DVD players can play xvid/avi

You probably already know this, but you can edit/filter and output DVD compliant MPEG2 directly from avidemux (instead of going through an intermediate lossy stage with quality loss and then re-encoding to MPEG2). Then I am a bit confused why you used AutoGK mentioned in the 1st post?

[manono]

Yeah, if the end product is to be DVD, and you just need to edit, the very lossy XviD or DivX AVI produced by AutoGK is not what you want. Me, I'd convert to a lossless AVI such as Lagarith for editing. poisondeathray recommends AviDemux to work directly on the VOBs. How you do it depends at least partly on the kinds of editing you need to do.

The reason your DVD plays OK is because most players get their DAR information from the IFOs. So, the VOBs themselves can have the wrong DAR (4:3 in this case), but the DVD can still play correctly at 16:9 if the IFOs are set as 16:9. Because AutoGK gets the DAR from DGIndex which gets it from the VOBs, unless you change the DAR in the Hidden Options of AutoGK, your AVI will turn out with the wrong aspect ratio.

I think you said you tried to change the DAR to 16:9 in the Hidden Options. Actually, I didn't fully understand what you wrote. Were you trying to encode from the DVD still in the DVD-ROM? Don't. Put it on the hard drive and then change the aspect ratio in the Hidden Options. If you use AutoGK for this job. Which you shouldn't.

[anindyanuri]

I am totally a newbie. Come to know about avidemux from you. I was using autogk for downloading my video file from the recorded DVD disc to my hard disc as avi file.

[minidv2dvd]

unless you are converting to a lossless avi format like lagarith you will experience large amounts of lost video quality going from mpeg-2 to avi and then encoding back to mpeg-2. just copy the files off the camera dvd to your hard drive using windows. drag and drop or copy and paste. then see about using an editor that can edit and export mpeg-2 without re-encoding. mpeg video wizard comes to mind.

[poisondeathray]

This is some additional information I recieved in a PM from anidyanuri; I hope it's ok to post it here and maybe someone can make suggestions

I use Ulead Video Editor for Downloading the recorded video from my DVD disc to my hard drive. Then using the same software I use to cut the unwanted portion of the video and some transition according to need (mainly cross fade is enough). The output is saved into a mpg file. Now using DVD author GUI I used to make the DVD. But after a few testing, it is seemed that the quality of this video is very bad according to the original media.

I'm not familiar with Ulead Video Editor, so I don't know if it's a "smart" editor or if it re-encodes the entire video -> quality loss

Perhaps you can post more information on your settings used and someone more familiar with that editor can assist

[anindyanuri]

Ulead video studio is not a quality product. it looses quality of picture a lot. that is why i asked some suggestion on how to grab a good quality video.

[poisondeathray]

It might be your settings (e.g. too low bitrate), but you probably want a editor that does smart rendering (only re-encodes at the cut sites or transition zones, the rest is untouched so original quality)

minidv2dvd's suggestion of womble mpeg video wizard dvd is probably the least expensive option that still has rendering effects. There are several others; here is a thread with more information https://forum.videohelp.com/topic306274.html