Resolution ch-ch-changes

[Kevin Henry]

When the source is something strange like 608x352 and I want to make a VCD or XVCD ...

... how do I change the resolution so it's the same aspect ratio but something compatible with XVCD or VCD???

If I convert & burn at 608x352 the picture is the right aspect ratio, but one side is off screen, & it's not centered. When I play on my standalone Sony. On the PC, it's fine.

I havent had any luck changing the resolution - even the same AR but 704xBLAH or 352xBLAH give strange distortions.

How can I 'letterbox' the picture so it's 704x352??? tmpgenc doesnt seem to want to do it.

I'd prefer to keep the resolution high, as the movie is a 50min anime & i want to keep the lines sharp & clear ...

[bartman]

TMPGEnc has an option to re-size a video and keep aspect ratio. It will add black bars to the top and bottom of your video if it is too wide.

As for letterboxing....as far as I understand, this is a feature of MPEG2 not MPEG1 and even then some players capable of playing SVCD might not re-size the video for you.....because the aspect ratio is only a flag in the header of the video stream, not the resolution of the video itself ( 4:3 DVD is 720x480/576, 16:9 DVD is 720x480/576 as well but is streached out when played )

[Kevin Henry]

ah ha!

so when you encode the mpg the AR is important? it tells the dvd player how to stretch the video? even with vcds?

when do I use different settings? how do I know what to use?

in the settings-advanced-source AR what should I set it to?

is the settings-advanced-video arrange method where I change the resizing method thing?

please bear with me it's hard to find this stuff on the internet!

[bartman]

only with MPEG2.....MPEG1 ( or VCD ) doesn't care because there is only one valid resolution for video.

Some SVCD players ignore the AR flag in the header and will play a 16:9 stream as 4:3 which is a pain in the bum (like my standalone DVD player) but it is worth a try. The way to get widescreen is to set your AR in TMPGenc to 16:9 and set the "video arrange method" to full screen, on the "advanced" tab. Make sure to NOT keep aspect ratio. The result, when played in media player, should be a squished up 4:3 display (media player pays no attention to the AR flag). Play the file in something like PowerDVD and you should get the full widescreen display.

Have fun

[bartman]

Oh...I almost forgot.....your source video will have to be widescreen in the first place to see the benefits of setting the AR flag. If your source video has the black letterbox bars encoded as part of the video, you will need to chop these out, otherwise you will end up with a long thin streached out video. You can crop the video in TMPGEnc by selecting "clip frame" on the advanced tab.