CCE Aspect Ratio Confusion

[digvid]

I am a little confused about how CCE handles aspect ratio. If I encode a 16:9 film (as mpeg2) entirely in TMPGEnc, setting the output ratio to 16:9, the resulting video looks like the original. However, if I set up a TMPGEnc project with source and output ratios as 16:9, convert the project to .avi using vfapi, load in CCE and set DAR 16:9, the encoded video is slightly squashed vertically. I played it back on several players and found the same results. Anyone have similar experiences?

- digvid

[BeTa]

DAR stands for Display Aspect Ratio.
Unless you view your video in a 16:9 monitor or HDTV, you should set it to 4:3.
The same is true for the TMPGEnc output aspect ratio.

Try and see.
BeTa

[digvid]

Okay, I solved my own problem. I am setting up a TMPGEnc project for the purpose of converting it to vfapi-avi and then feeding it to CCE. The correct settings (my original .vob files are 16:9) are 16:9 NTSC source,
***** 4:3 display *****, and DAR 4:3 in CCE. A few weeks ago, someone on this forum had told me that the only settings on the initial tab of TMPGEnc that mattered (if frameserving and not using TMPGEnc to actually encode) were resolution, frame rate, and aspect ratio. This is true, but there is a caveat: if you choose the wrong mpeg type, you are presented with the wrong aspect ratio choices! I was leaving it on the default, mpeg-1, which gives me a 4:3 NTSC 525-line option. If you change to mpeg-2, the option changes to 4:3 display, which is the correct choice. This makes a visible difference, and gets rid of the "squashed" effect I was seeing before.

- digvid