Help with Aspect Ratio of Screen Captures Anamorphic Widescreen

[beanie168]

Hi there, first time poster,long time lurker. I've been trying to cap a DVD (NTSC) Anamorphic Widescreen 1.85:1 following some of the excellent advice here but I have to admit I'm lost.

I'm on VLC Version 2.2.2 Weatherwax (Intel 64bit) for iMac

When I cap any other DVD/avi/mp4 etc, they all cap to the correct ratio in VLC. However this specific DVD does not. No matter how many times I change the screen aspect ratio, it comes out 16:9 not 1.85:1 (or 37:20).

I'm at a loss how to fix this. Help!

(oh and before you judge the movie, its for my 7yo. I'm a TOS fan myself)

any suggestions gratefully accepted.

[smrpix]

DVD only exists as 4:3 or 16:9 (1.78:1) The thin black lines at the top and bottom indicate your 1.85 aspect is probably correctly portrayed by encoding 16:9. How does the rest of the show look?

[jagabo]

DVDs come only in 16:9 and 4:3. Any other aspect ratio will be letterboxed or pillarboxed into one of those ratios. 1.85:1 is a common movie aspect ratio. Only made for TV stuff is shot at 16:9.

[Skiller]

Why do you want to go through the hassle of capturing a DVD if you can rip it which is even lossless?

[beanie168]

Hey everyone, thnx for the responses.

smrpix: Yes the rest of the film is like that.
Skiller: I actually don't want to capture it, I want to do automated extraction of frames (I call them screen caps).

I might not have been clear enough in my initial post, I'm not trying to rip the DVD, I am trying to extract frames (I call them caps). The frames I'm extracting are coming out a different aspect ratio to the actual film/DVD. I have tried to change the screen aspect ratio but no matter how many times I change the SAR, the caps aren't coming out the same as the DVD.

To give you an idea, I've followed these two tutorials (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geF_i71I-ZM and https://www.isimonbrown.co.uk/vlc-export-frames/), neither of which help me with the screen aspect ratio issue I've have. I've also read through this brilliant post (https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/120047-Determining-Aspect-Ratios-and-Resolutions) in the threads. I couldn't see the solution in that post though.

[jagabo]

I'm not up to date with VLC but I just tried it with version 2.0.7 (Windows) and with a 16:9 NTSC DVD I got a 853x480 png snapshot. The DVD was 2.35:1 movie so the image had the expected letterbox bars top and bottom.

[ackboo]

Apparently the newer versions of vlc do not resize automatically, try with an older version
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/372207-VLC-2-2-1-Video-snapshot-aspect-ratio-won-t-change

[manono]

I have tried to change the screen aspect ratio but no matter how many times I change the SAR, the caps aren't coming out the same as the DVD.

Of course they are. The film is stored on the DVD at 720x480 and that's the resolution of your pictures, isn't it? Just resize them afterwards. How hard is that?

[beanie168]

Apparently the newer versions of vlc do not resize automatically, try with an older version
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/372207-VLC-2-2-1-Video-snapshot-aspect-ratio-won-t-change

Thanks for the link. That is what I found as well. Looks like I'll be manually extracting frames (when I do it manually they are the correct size - its just the automated version that resizes them incorrectly).

[beanie168]

I'm not up to date with VLC but I just tried it with version 2.0.7 (Windows) and with a 16:9 NTSC DVD I got a 853x480 png snapshot. The DVD was 2.35:1 movie so the image had the expected letterbox bars top and bottom.

Thnx Jagabo, I'm on Mac, when I do it manually its fine, when I set up VLC to do it automatically every 20 frames for the entire program it screws it up. It doe sit on other DVD's as well.

[beanie168]

I have tried to change the screen aspect ratio but no matter how many times I change the SAR, the caps aren't coming out the same as the DVD.

Of course they are. The film is stored on the DVD at 720x480 and that's the resolution of your pictures, isn't it? Just resize them afterwards. How hard is that?

Thanks for the suggestion Manono. I can certainly resize them but was actually trying to avoid resizing over 1,000 images.

[manono]

Something like IrfanView and, I'm sure, other picture programs, can batch resize images.

[beanie168]

Something like IrfanView and, I'm sure, other picture programs, can batch resize images.

Thanks for the link Manono, I'll take a look.

[theewizard]

Try this
Do your captures
Take the pix and load them in irfanview or your favorite image editor
And just change the aspect ratio, which will stretch it back out
Then save it
You can probably use a script to automate the process, depending on your editor

Just saw Manano beat me to it