16x9 question?

[Phamous]

I just bought a new big screen TV, and it can play 16x9 aspect ratio. Is there an advatage to encoding in this ratio? If I do encoded it at 16x9 will it not work on a normal 27" TV? Basically is there any reason I would want to encode at 16x9???

[mh2360]

Do you mean encode at 16:9 apect ratio (i.e. letterbox) or do you mean "Anamorphic", (ie. 4:3 picture squashed vertically)?

[bartman]

most movies released on dvd these days are encoded as 16:9 anamorphic. This means that the movie resolution of 1024x576 is squished into 720x575 (for PAL), and is un-squished when played back. If you have a 4:3 TV your DVD player will letterbox the output.

This is different to movies already encoded in letterbox format (the black bars are encoded with the movie).

Every TV can play back 16:9 movies....but with a widescreen, you wont get "letterboxed"

[Chrome58]

Of course there is an advantage when encoding an anamorphic movie : you'll encode more data from the movie. Say you want to convert a DVD (720x576) into a VCD (352x288) :

1) If you keep the 16:9 anamorphic ration, your VCD file will have a full 288 lines resolution

2) If you encode the 4:3 source, therefore adding black margins to the top and bottom, your VCD file will have less than a 288 lines resolution (198 lines if the movie is a simple 16:9 ratio, even less if it's in Cinemascope), all other lines being taken by the black margins. Therefore, you'll lose precious pixels. Furthermore, when your 16:9 TV will play the 4:3 movie, it will zoom to get rid of the margins, and your feeble resolution will show even more ...

[mh2360]

Also, remember that because there is going to be less "black bars", this will make a difference in file size when using CQ/VBR

[LeeBear]

Everyone's got valid points but one semi important one's left out. Most DVD players ignore the DAR flat (Display Aspect Ratio) when playing back a VCD or SVCD so if you encode your video to anamorphic (16:9) it'll look fine on your widescreen tv but on a normal 4:3 TV it'll look tall and skinny because the player will play it in a 4:3 ratio instead of adding the black bars to keep the proper aspect ratio like it does when you play an anamorphic DVD. That's the only downside to anamorphic (S)VCD's. If you're going just watch it on your widescreen tv, then for all means encoding to 16:9 is the way to go, but for versatility go 4:3 letterbox.

-LeeBear

[Phamous]

Thanks everyone. I think that I'm going to encode a movie at 16:9 just to see if it makes much of a quality difference. If not I will stick to the 4:3.