Need help with aspect ratio woes after rendering/converting

[mpalm887]

I've got some DV source footage that was shot in 16:9 but when I capture it and play the raw DV-AVI file it looks squished, almost like a 4:3 frame, but not even quite that narrow.

I don't want to compress the footage I just want to store it as is, but I decided to compress it just to see how the aspect ratio turned out. So I dropped the footage into a widescreen pre-set Vegas project and the software picks up the footage as 16:9.

When I render the footage out as DV-AVI again (with added titles and transitions) it goes back to playing in the squished format. NOTE: The uncompressed files play with proper aspect ratio in Quicktime for some reason, albeit with shite quality:

Now when I compress this newly rendered file (or the original DV capture) using RipBot264 with x.264, the newly encoded mp4 plays in proper 16:9. OR when I render the original footage as an h.264 mp4 with Vegas, the new file also plays back in the proper format.

So the uncompressed stuff is a weird fattened 4:3 and anything compressed (yet with no adjustment to aspect ratio) somehow plays properly.

I don't really feel like keeping the compressed files. I have enough hard drive space to hold onto the raw DV captures without compression, but I need them to look proper.


Any input?

[manono]

Any input?

Yeah, what's the problem? Everything is as it should be. A lot of players will play it as if it's 4:3 or even 1:1, but most players can also be adjusted to play it as 16:9. If you're archiving it what difference does it make that it looks 'funny' at its stored resolution of 720x480?

[AlanHK]

Any input?

Just the player software isn't picking up the ratio.
You just have to set that yourself.

In MPC, which you appear to be using, try
View/video frame/override aspect ratio/16:9

[mpalm887]

Yeah, what's the problem? Everything is as it should be. A lot of players will play it as if it's 4:3 or even 1:1, but most players can also be adjusted to play it as 16:9. If you're archiving it what difference does it make that it looks 'funny' at its stored resolution of 720x480?

Indeed for storage purposes it's no big deal. The problem arises when people want to sit around and view some old footage without encoding it for presentation. I still want it to be watchable at a moments notice.

Obviously I'm not well versed in this area. So you're saying it doesn't matter the aspect ratio when it comes to storage, all that matters is the pixel count (resolution)? So this means the shape of the pixels themselves is what determines the AR of the video frame...correct?

Just the player software isn't picking up the ratio.
You just have to set that yourself.

In MPC, which you appear to be using, try
View/video frame/override aspect ratio/16:9

This fixed the image immediately. Thank you for that.

One annoyance with this approach is that every time I open a video in MPC I'll have to manually adjust the AR. I just tested it and now it's stretching out my 4:3 stuff to the 16:9 frame.

Now all in all I'm satisfied with the valuable advice you guys have offered. I'm still a bit puzzled though at why an encoded video with the same resolution as the original DV footage seems to be able to play perfectly with the AR settings on "Keep Aspect Ratio", but the DV stuff has to be adjusted manually. Just seems weird that MPC wouldn't default to 4:3 or 16:9 rather than present it as something in between.

[jagabo]

Like DVD, DV uses the same frame size for both 4:3 and 16:9 material (720x480 NTSC, 720x576 PAL). The difference is a flag the tells the player or editor how the video should be displayed. Use a player that that detects the flag in your DV AVI files and displays the video properly. Players that don't detect the aspect ratio flags usually default to square pixels -- so the display aspect ratio matches the storage aspect ratio -- 3:2 (720:480) in the case of NTSC DV AVI.

[mpalm887]

Like DVD, DV uses the same frame size for both 4:3 and 16:9 material (720x480 NTSC, 720x576 PAL). The difference is a flag the tells the player or editor how the video should be displayed. Use a player that that detects the flag in your DV AVI files and displays the video properly. Players that don't detect the aspect ratio flags usually default to square pixels -- so the display aspect ratio matches the storage aspect ratio -- 3:2 (720:480) in the case of NTSC DV AVI.

Booya! Now that's what I'm talking about. After all my tinkering my only conclusion was that there must be something in the format itself. That's a wickedly informative answer. Can I give you kudos or something?

So is it possible that the DV AVI files I'm using are actually completely void of any flag? Is there a way to add this in afterwords without re encoding the video?

For the record I'm perfectly satisfied, just trying to get a little extra education while the topic is on the table.

[jagabo]

I think Enosoft DV Processor (free for personal use) can add/change the aspect ratio flags. But not all programs will respond the AR flag in a DV AVI file. So you may still have to force the AR manually.

[mpalm887]

I think Enosoft DV Processor (free for personal use) can add/change the aspect ratio flags. But not all programs will respond the AR flag in a DV AVI file. So you may still have to force the AR manually.

Thank you many times over. I'll try that out, but even if it doesn't work at least now I know what's going on and can take action.

I'd say this topic can be put to rest.

[edDV]

VLC also misses the DV wide flag and plays it 720x480 square pixel.

You need to set aspect ratio to 16:9 and deinterlace to Yadif. Both settings are under the Video menu.

Windows Media Player for W7 follows the wide flag. It also auto deinterlaces. I haven't explored all the settings.