Aspect Ratio Change

[VicSedition]

Ok.. total newbie with logical reasoning skills. I have AVS converter and when I utilize a dl'd file (lets say mp4) its already in a aspect ratio that includes upper and lower black bars. Trying to negate that or playback on my TV when burning to DVD I have selected the slider bar to 100% just as a test... this worked great as it cropped most of the extra footage leaving the center shots great.... however on my particular movie (Shooter) there are some 'in movie texts' that describe where they are and it says Ethiopia, however 100% seems to have trimmed the 'ia' off of Ethiopia.. so reason says that at like 80% I should see that and most of the movie without any compromised viewing.... is this correct? Or is there another way to fix this.... the original file included black bars like 16:9 would but I eliminated them with the slider option. I selected 4:3 and then cropped 100%. Am I an idiot or am I tracking but just in the wrong direction?

[Baldrick]

Are you cropping the 2.35:1 to 16:9/4:3 or what exactly? Then yes stuff will disappear. Keep the black borders.

[VicSedition]

So thats part of my question.. I guess I know too little about aspect ratios and the particular programs that could through conversion processes change the view with cropping... The original file when played with vlc states 1280x528... so when i use avs converter it will load this file and then it shows upon preview the black bars on top and bottom... normally I wouldn't mind except my tv is tiny and I'm trying to make it look more full screen. So I selected the 16:9 format (which seemed to open up more of a viewing field) in avs and then slid crop slider to 100% which upon initial looks of previews seemed ok (previews being in avs). When watching, everything is centered and the movie seems great, except when the "in movie" text was clipped... did I use the correct process (without getting new programs) to try and create a more full size DVD or should I use another approach.. I really would appreciate any and all new information as I'm not an idiot but I do not possess much knowledge in the area of computers and especially codecs/aspects/conversions.....

[guns1inger]

Your choice is simple. You can have the bars and keep the image, or crop off the bars and lose the edges of the image. There is a third option, which is to simply resize the image to stretch it vertically, but that is ludicrous.

If you want to see the entire image, you have to have the black bars.

[Baldrick]

You could just crop the top and bottom and then resize to 16:9 but it will look stretched. Or else it wont be possible to zoom without cropping the sides. Get a bigger TV. .

[VicSedition]

Thank you... I was assuming that, but I was gonna try every possible combo until I had something that seemed presentable on my TV..... So cropping it 100% just took the width borders in too far and eliminated the upper and lower borders...? I have noticed that selecting 80% tends to show me the focus of action and I'm not missing hardly a thing... and it includes the in movie texts... so would this be a correct and easy approach?? Sounds like it is....

[VicSedition]

Yeah a nice big tv is definitely in the works.....then it wouldn't matter eh? I'm just trying to do my best on completely limited information. Thanks guys... are there any recommendations besides AVS (which I have a full version of) for doing most of my dirty work of converting Mp4 MKV and the sometimes AVI into DVDs? I get all these different rips and depending upon its ripped viewing aspect I'm just concerned about making it a somewhat full screen experience...

[AlanHK]

are there any recommendations besides AVS (which I have a full version of) for doing most of my dirty work of converting Mp4 MKV and the sometimes AVI into DVDs?

FitCD can help to make a basic AVS script to resize and add borders as necessary to preserve the aspect ratio.
You can also use it to crop the edges and make it more or completely full screen (i.e. 4:3 ratio).

It may not be able to read all MKVs, but usually works.

[VicSedition]

so with something like fitcd I can create an avs script (not sure what that is) to resize the video file into something that might work for me... sounds good and I'll explore more.... I hear terms like remuxing and avs script and unfortunately (not that I'm illogical or idiotic) I don't understand those terms.... I can make assumptions but you know what thats like... any information or links to basic information that i might be missing would be so freaking helpful....does FITcd do what avs and dvd shrink/dvd fab do? or am I confused? Usually I burn stuff and it works great, but lately I've been getting some substantial amount of BDrips that are MP4... converting with avs only allows me to select 16:9 or 4:3 for DVD SP discs... upon those lines I was using the crop slider.. but I'm listening to what your saying and I'm assuming that something like FITcd must allow me to convert the output size to my needs (or close to)... assuming it repairs my sizing issue do I continue to utilize FITcd or do I use that and then AVS converter?

[davexnet]

It's a compromise any time you start to try to make it "fit" better. On my medium size 4/3 TV, 2.35 ratio movies looks pretty bad. For some of the common files, for example low res 640*272 I usually re-encode them - and here's where the compromise comes in. I CROP the width to 608, and then stretch the height to 304, so now I've got a ratio of 2 instead of 2.35. Looks better on my TV. Very simple to do in the Avisynth script.