Is it possible to re-edit a non-anamorphic dvd to anamorphic?

[Beautiful Alone]

I have a few dvd's that i really like and it happens to be in non-anamorphic form and i have a widescreen hdtv. It would be really nice if could rip the dvd to my pc and re-edit it into anamorphic form. Are there any sotfwares out there that does that?

thanks.

[manono]

Hi,

Are there any sotfwares out there that does that?

Yeah, several, with probably AviSynth being the best to frameserve into whatever encoder you usually use. But you have to understand that there's more involved than a simple "re-edit" of the DVD. You have to crop, resize, and completely reencode it. The result won't look any better than if you just use the zoom on your remote control to have the movie fill your TV screen.

[AlanHK]

If you mean the videos are letterboxed, you can copy and crop them.
You'll need to
1) rip the movie to a file
2) edit this video to crop (using say VirtualDub)
3) reauthor to a new DVD

There will be some quality loss.

If it's a 4:3 ratio frame, then you obviously can't recreate the missing parts of the image on the sides.

I note however that you may be able to get the same effect with a lot less work simply by using the zoom control in your player.

And another, even worse method:
I notice a lot of restaurants here have TVs on, set to display all images widescreen no matter what the original format. This is incredibly ugly, but some people demand that if they have a wide screen that it be filled at all times.

[Beautiful Alone]

The dvd is in 1.78:1 ratio. I understand it doesn't make much sense cropping a 4:3 image.


If i re-edit it into anamorphic, will it still preserve the black bars so it would appear normal on 4:3 crt tv and automatically adjust on 16:9 tv?

[guns1inger]

The movie is 1.78 : 1 in a 4:3 frame ? Or true 1.78:1 16:9 ?

It is rare for 1.78 : 1 material to be encoded 4:3.

If you crop it and encode it as 16:9, it will not have any black bars. It will playback correctly on both 4:3 and 16:9 televisions if the player and TVs are set up correctly, just like any commercial 16:9 disc.

[Beautiful Alone]

right, it is rare these days, but older dvds are quite common. you never encounter any non-anamorphic dvds? This Titanic dvd is in 2.35:1 and is not anamorphic, the black bars are glue to the film and when playback on a 16:9 tv it looked horrible and stretched.
http://www.amazon.com/Titanic-Lewis-Abernathy/dp/B00000JLWW/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=...0665537&sr=8-1


are you sure it will also play correctly on a 4:3 tv, when you say crop i assume you meant by cutting the black bars which is fine when playback on a 16:9 tv, but when playback on 4:3 will the black bars still remain to retain it's correct aspect ratio? if not then it will appear squished.

I didnt want something that crop and gets rid of the black bars, i want it to restore it into anamorphic mode. anamorphic is best of both worlds.


what program do you use to crop?

[Beautiful Alone]

zooming as you guys suggested is horrible, some of the image will be missed, not to mention you have no control over where you wanted to to zoom.

[guns1inger]

Assuming NTSC (correct me if I'm wrong on the format) you need to crop 60 lines from the top, 60 from the bottom, then resize to 480 lines. Encode as 16:9, then author as 16:9. It will playback correctly on your widescreen TV, and on a 4:3 TV if the player is set to Widescreen Letterbox output (if commercial discs playback correctly, then this will).

You do risk the image looking softer, but it should look better than using the zoom function. Note : as the source is still wider than 16:9, it will not fill a 16:9 screen - you will still have some black bars.

[Beautiful Alone]

Assuming NTSC (correct me if I'm wrong on the format) you need to crop 60 lines from the top, 60 from the bottom, then resize to 480 lines. Encode as 16:9, then author as 16:9. It will playback correctly on your widescreen TV, and on a 4:3 TV if the player is set to Widescreen Letterbox output (if commercial discs playback correctly, then this will).

You do risk the image looking softer, but it should look better than using the zoom function. Note : as the source is still wider than 16:9, it will not fill a 16:9 screen - you will still have some black bars.

NTSC it is, yes.
right, and you're speaking of wider format as such 2:35:1.

and which program you are referring to?

[guns1inger]

I would let somebody else do all the hard work for you. Rip the DVD to your HDD, load it into DVD Rebuilder, and then select

Options>AVS Options>Advanced (Expert) Options>Convert from LB 4:3 to 16:9

and encode with HCEnc.

Burn with Imgburn

[manono]

zooming as you guys suggested is horrible, some of the image will be missed, not to mention you have no control over where you wanted to to zoom.

I don't know what kind of a zoom you have for your player and TV set, but that shouldn't be correct. At normal AR, a widescreen 4:3 DVD sits in the middle of the widescreen TV set surrounded by black on all 4 sides. A zoom should allow the video to scale correctly, with the width stretching to fill the screen right to left, and the height increasing enough to keep the AR.

If you're saying you lose some image on the right and left sides, then that's the overscan, and will happen when you crop and resize to 16:9, unless you add some black to the right and left sides to allow for the overscan. Overscan will affect anything you show on the tv set.

The dvd is in 1.78:1 ratio.... right, it is rare these days, but older dvds are quite common.

I doubt it, as there are next to no movies made at 1.78:1. Maybe you mean to say it's 1.85:1. That's a fairly common movie aspect ratio. When cropped and resized for 16:9 it will still have some small amount of black above and below the active image - roughly 10 rows of pixels above and below. If you don't see them on the widescreen TV set, it's the overscan again.

If i re-edit it into anamorphic, will it still preserve the black bars so it would appear normal on 4:3 crt tv and automatically adjust on 16:9 tv?

When converting to 16:9 black bars are removed. How much remains, if any, depends on the original aspect ratio of the film. As I said earlier, a 1.85:1 movie will still have some. A 2.35:1 movie will have more. What makes it possible to keep the AR when playing on both 16:9 and 4:3 TV sets is that the player adds black bars when outputting to a 4:3 TV set (or does the TV set add the bars).

This Titanic dvd is in 2.35:1 and is not anamorphic, the black bars are glue to the film and when playback on a 16:9 tv it looked horrible and stretched.

That sounds to me like some kind of a stretch mode used to stretch the video from right to left, at the expense of the aspect ratio. That's not a zoom mode. A widescreen 4:3 DVD should be able to be played on a widescreen TV set with the correct aspect ratio. If this happens with no way to fix it, either the DVD player or the TV set or both are defective. Or you have the DVD player set to output for 4:3 rather than for 16:9 as you should. And if Titanic is one of these 4:3 DVDs you have, and if you really like that movie, maybe it would be better for you just to buy the newer 16:9 10th Anniversary DVD of the movie:

Titanic appears in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 on these single-sided, dual-layered DVDs; the image has been enhanced for 16X9 televisions. While the original release packed the movie onto one disc, this one spread it to two. It also gave us an anamorphic transfer instead of the old non-anamorphic one. With that came noticeable improvements in this excellent presentation.

http://dvdmg.com/titanic10.shtml

[live4fun]

try convertXtoDVD and see, right click video assets there is option you can re-size,crop etc.

[jagabo]

According to one of the reviews at Amazon that DVD is already anamorphic. DVD only supports two aspect ratios 4:3 and 16:9. A 2.35:1 movie encoded anamorphically at 16:9 will still have black bars at the top and bottom of the frame.

[manono]

Yeah, but the link Beautiful Alone gave is for the 1999 2.35:1 but 4:3 version. It was a famous example for a number of years of a well known movie for which there was no 16:9 DVD. The 16:9 DVDs of that film began to come out years later.

[jagabo]

I see, the user review was talking about another release.

[dialysis1a]

It seems that what you have is 4:3 Letterboxed. A lot of older discs were like that. In that case, guns1inger's advice will take care of this for you.

[Beautiful Alone]

I would let somebody else do all the hard work for you. Rip the DVD to your HDD, load it into DVD Rebuilder, and then select

Options>AVS Options>Advanced (Expert) Options>Convert from LB 4:3 to 16:9

and encode with HCEnc.

Burn with Imgburn

Thanks, it worked.


Ahh.. that was too easy considering that i haven't been kept up to date with video editing stuff. And i was told that there would be cropping to do? I don't see the need to do so here.

Also, i was surprise that the subtitles actually remain as a whole, i was expecting it to be missing abit on the bottom.

[manono]

And i was told that there would be cropping to do? I don't see the need to do so here.

Also, i was surprise that the subtitles actually remain as a whole, i was expecting it to be missing abit on the bottom.

Ignorance is bliss.

[guns1inger]

Ahh.. that was too easy considering that i haven't been kept up to date with video editing stuff. And i was told that there would be cropping to do? I don't see the need to do so here.

Also, i was surprise that the subtitles actually remain as a whole, i was expecting it to be missing abit on the bottom.

That's why I suggested this option. It has, in a single exercise, cropped 60 lines from the top and bottom of your video, resized the video to 480 lines, encoded the video as 16:9 anamorphic, resized and repositioned the subtitles for 16:9 display, and then put it all back into the original DVD structure, ready for burning. It has been a busy little bee.

[Beautiful Alone]

I don't know what kind of a zoom you have for your player and TV set, but that shouldn't be correct. At normal AR, a widescreen 4:3 DVD sits in the middle of the widescreen TV set surrounded by black on all 4 sides. A zoom should allow the video to scale correctly, with the width stretching to fill the screen right to left, and the height increasing enough to keep the AR.

If you're saying you lose some image on the right and left sides, then that's the overscan, and will happen when you crop and resize to 16:9, unless you add some black to the right and left sides to allow for the overscan. Overscan will affect anything you show on the tv set.

I dont know what zoom you have either,but there isn't anything a simply zoom could do to solve the problem of a non-anamorphic dvd such as 1.85:1 or 2.35:1. without having to sacrifice some image lost, and yes im aware it has 4 sides in the middle on a widescreen tv.

I doubt it, as there are next to no movies made at 1.78:1. Maybe you mean to say it's 1.85:1. That's a fairly common movie aspect ratio. When cropped and resized for 16:9 it will still have some small amount of black above and below the active image - roughly 10 rows of pixels above and below. If you don't see them on the widescreen TV set, it's the overscan again.

yeah, i meant 1.85:1. Youre right, there should be small amout of blacks bars top and bottom since the dvd is 1.85:1 and widescreen tv's are 16:9 = 1.78:1. i always wonder why i dont see it on my widescreen tv.

That sounds to me like some kind of a stretch mode used to stretch the video from right to left, at the expense of the aspect ratio. That's not a zoom mode. A widescreen 4:3 DVD should be able to be played on a widescreen TV set with the correct aspect ratio. If this happens with no way to fix it, either the DVD player or the TV set or both are defective. Or you have the DVD player set to output for 4:3 rather than for 16:9 as you should. And if Titanic is one of these 4:3 DVDs you have, and if you really like that movie, maybe it would be better for you just to buy the newer 16:9 10th Anniversary DVD of the movie:

A widescreen 4:3 does not play right on a widescreen tv and no, it's not defective. No offense, but I have come to a conclusion that you dont know half of what you're talking about and assuming you dont have a widescreen tv?

I'ts not that i have a large collection of dvd that are not anamorphic, it's just that i have this foreign dvd which happens to be one of my favourites also happen to be non-anamorphic. That why im willing to go though all the hard process to remaster it back to anamorphic.



I dont feel like paying for Titanic again, the original should've been anamorphic. I'll wait for the Blu-Ray version.

[Beautiful Alone]

Ahh.. that was too easy considering that i haven't been kept up to date with video editing stuff. And i was told that there would be cropping to do? I don't see the need to do so here.

Also, i was surprise that the subtitles actually remain as a whole, i was expecting it to be missing abit on the bottom.

That's why I suggested this option. It has, in a single exercise, cropped 60 lines from the top and bottom of your video, resized the video to 480 lines, encoded the video as 16:9 anamorphic, resized and repositioned the subtitles for 16:9 display, and then put it all back into the original DVD structure, ready for burning. It has been a busy little bee.

When the video is resized to 480 lines, is it in 480i or p?
Are there any difference between self cropping vs this all in one process, is one better than the other?

It's funny to see how a 21st century dvd comes in non-anamorphic standard and yet im able to do this on my home pc.

[guns1inger]

If the original was progressive, as many NTSC movies are, then Rebuilder will output progressive. If it is interlaced, the output will be interlaced.

If you follow all the steps correctly, including understanding how best to crop and resize potentially interlaced material, then the results will be the same as those produced by Rebuilder. It is just far simpler to let Rebuilder do all the leg work if that is all that is required.

You may not see the bars from 1.85 : 1 widescreen movies on your TV because they are hidden by the overscan area. I also have several movies that were originally shot on 1.85 : 1, the cover says they are 1.85 : 1, but they have been artificially zoomed to fill the 16:9 frame to stop widescreen TV owners from complaining about the black bars.

Finally, I know of many widescreen TVs that will correctly zoom a 4:3 letterbox video to fill the screen from left to right. The results are not as good as a true anamorphic, but it isn't distorted or stretched, just softer. Also, may widescreen TVs have several different zoom modes, including ones that do stretch an image to fill the screen top to bottom - again to placate the "I don't want any black bars" crowd. Perhaps yours isn't capable of zooming 4:3 letterboxed material, but all the widescreen TVs I have used have been able to, although the results aren't something I would generally want to watch.

4:3 letterbox transfers were no uncommon early on as they came from the same transfer done for letterboxed VHS. Even the belated release of the original Star Wars films without all the CG 'enhancements' comes from the same masters as the widescreen VHS release, and is still 4:3. I don't know what is worse - letterbox 4:3, or flipper discs. Both were crude and thankfully now rare occurances.

[manono]

A widescreen 4:3 does not play right on a widescreen tv and no, it's not defective. No offense, but I have come to a conclusion that you dont know half of what you're talking about and assuming you dont have a widescreen tv?

Don't be absurd. Of course a widescreen 4:3 DVD plays "right" on a widescreen TV set. It's 4:3. Played properly it sits there in the middle surrounded by black. If you want to fill the screen right to left, then you zoom it. I have a nice Sony Bravia widescreen LCD 1080p HDTV, thank you. If I zoom a widescreen 4:3 DVD using the DVD player's remote control, it fills the screen from left to right with the proper AR. I have very little overscan on my TV, so I lose next to nothing to the overscan. I don't zoom them, though, because a widescreen 4:3 DVD has so little resolution that it looks like crap when scaled up in size - about the same as what converting it to 16:9 does. For some people, though, the scaler on the TV set is bad enough that doing the conversion can give them a little bit better picture. You're the one that said zooming your Titanic DVD made the picture look "horrible and stretched". If so, there's something wrong somewhere, with the player, the TV set, or the way you set them up. It simply shouldn't play with bad aspect ratio.

[Beautiful Alone]

Ahh.. that was too easy considering that i haven't been kept up to date with video editing stuff. And i was told that there would be cropping to do? I don't see the need to do so here.

Also, i was surprise that the subtitles actually remain as a whole, i was expecting it to be missing abit on the bottom.

That's why I suggested this option. It has, in a single exercise, cropped 60 lines from the top and bottom of your video, resized the video to 480 lines, encoded the video as 16:9 anamorphic, resized and repositioned the subtitles for 16:9 display, and then put it all back into the original DVD structure, ready for burning. It has been a busy little bee.

Alright, something is wrong here, I have compared the newly re-edit copy vs the original copy and it is clearly missing some of the image. may it be that DVDrebuilder crop too much off?

[manono]

may it be that DVDrebuilder crop too much off?

I've already told you (twice) the reason for this. I already told you the same would happen when reencoded for 16:9. DVD Rebuilder (or more properly, the AviSynth script it uses) doesn't crop from the sides at all when doing the 4:3 to 16:9 conversion, only from the top and bottom. The reason (again) is your TV set's overscan:

https://www.videohelp.com/glossary?O#Overscan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overscan
http://www.mastersofcinema.org/reviews/03lookingbeyond.htm
http://www.keohi.com/keohihdtv/learnabout/definitions/overscan.html

[Beautiful Alone]

So i did everything right w/ dvdrebuilder on the transformation and now my tv is being overscan? I was aware of overscans on some other tv sets, and was little specious of mine at times, but i never took the time to inspect it.

so all the movies ive been watched on my lcd tv have been overscan?

This is quite annoying, i expect it to be flawless when i drop thousands of dollars on this tv, why cant they get something this minor right?

Is this badly engineer or intentional?

How can i FIX this? I have Sony KDL-40XBR2 40" set.
http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10551&stor...2&Dept=tvvideo

[manono]

Hehe, you have a good TV set. I expect it's intentional. It protects you from seeing a lot of garbage at the outer edges of the picture. Most all TV sets have some degree of overscan, some more than others. It's not really such a big deal. If you hadn't been playing around with your 4:3 DVDs and seeing the "whole" picture before zooming and noticing that you lost a small part of it from the sides, I don't think you would ever have noticed. Can it be fixed? Usually it can be lessened, but it can be very risky to do it. You have to gain access to the TV set's service menu. Here's one page that might be able to help:

http://www.keohi.com/keohihdtv/brandspecific/sony/servicemenu_sony.html

Don't blame me if you screw it up. You've been warned.

[jagabo]

so all the movies ive been watched on my lcd tv have been overscan?

Yes.

This is quite annoying, i expect it to be flawless when i drop thousands of dollars on this tv, why cant they get something this minor right?

Overscan is right. It has been standard practice since the inception of TV.

Is this badly engineer or intentional?

It's fully intentional.

How can i FIX this? I have Sony KDL-40XBR2 40" set.

Many newer HDTVs now have a non-overscan option. But then people complain about the noise and junk that sometimes appears at the edges of the frame (broadcasters "know" you won't see it so they don't worry about it). If your TV doesn't have a non-overscan option you have to add black borders to the edges of your video so that the black borders are hidden by the overscan, not the main picture. Be aware that different TVs overscan by different amounts.

[Beautiful Alone]

Hehe, you have a good TV set. I expect it's intentional. It protects you from seeing a lot of garbage at the outer edges of the picture. Most all TV sets have some degree of overscan, some more than others. It's not really such a big deal. If you hadn't been playing around with your 4:3 DVDs and seeing the "whole" picture before zooming and noticing that you lost a small part of it from the sides, I don't think you would ever have noticed. Can it be fixed? Usually it can be lessened, but it can be very risky to do it. You have to gain access to the TV set's service menu. Here's one page that might be able to help:

http://www.keohi.com/keohihdtv/brandspecific/sony/servicemenu_sony.html

Don't blame me if you screw it up. You've been warned.

Are you 100% sure my set is overscan?

so once you customize it manually can it be reset to default like unplugging the cord?

[Beautiful Alone]

It's fully intentional.

W.T.F?