Playing DVD file problem

[lun_hangsing]

I have a DVD mpg file(720x576 i think). When I play it with JetAudio the video looks fine but when I play it with Media Player, the video gets stretched (people gets long faced). The same problem when i tried to edit it with Pinnacle Studio. why is it so? I tried encoding to different frame size, but same people are still long faced. Please help.

I am planning to write it to VCD PAL.
Needless to say, I am a newbee. Just got a new handycam and i captured it in that format.

[kschang]

Aspect ratio problem. Force it to 1:1 or 16:9 and see what happens.

[lun_hangsing]

How?

[FulciLives]

It sounds like you have a MPEG-2 that is 16x9 widescreen anamorphic. The video is stored within a standard frame size (generally 720x480 NTSC or 720x576 PAL with 704 width also possible) which forces everyone to look tall and skinny and it is up to the DVD player (hardware) or the DVD player software to properly resize the video so that it looks normal.

It sounds as though the programs you are using are not doing this properly ... except for JetAudio (which I've never heard of).

Generally speaking when playing back such a file you would want to use a program designed specifically for DVD Video playback. The two most popular being PowerDVD and WinDVD and most new computers come with one or the other.

So as mentioned you need to tell the software you are using that your source is 16x9 widescreen anamorphic and the better programs will have such an option.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[kschang]

Use BSPlayer or MPlayer to "force" an aspect ratio as a test.

[FulciLives]

Use BSPlayer or MPlayer to "force" an aspect ratio as a test.

I didn't think of this before but it could be that the video is 16x9 widescreen anamorphic but that the file header information is wrong.

This would make it display incorrectly even with software that can properly resize 16x9 widescreen material automatically because with the wrong info in the header the software wouldn't know to resize it on playback.

However as kschang mentioned, some software let's you force 16x9 WS even if the header says it is not.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman