4:3 VOBs and IFOs That Are Really Be Meant to Be 16:9?

[blutarsky]

Hi,

Forgive me if this should be in the regular conversion forum as opposed to the advanced.

I have a video of a European satellite broadcast of a concert. Before I got this I didn't even know what a VOB was and have, for the last week or so, been giving myself a crash course in PAL to NTSC video conversion. I have learned how to use IfoEdit, etc., etc.. The original VOBs are of course PAL, 780x576, 25fps. They open as 4:3 with all my video players and are identified as such. The original .IFO files indicate that they are 4:3 PAL. I have converted them to NTSC DVD by using the patch method (fool your player) and have also used Nero (blech) to convert and remake them @ 29.97 fps. Neither method has proven to be so sporty. Both are twitchy, but the framerate conversion with Nero is less so. I intend to try some better software and some of the methods posted here in the guides. But this post is not really about converting PAL to NTSC.

I have a 4:3 SONY WEGA TV that has the "16:9 enhanced" setting. If you are unfamiliar with what this setting does, it allows me to decode 16:9 anamorphic DVDs as such with my player, instead of as 4:3 letterboxed, and send them to my TV where the "16:9 Enhanced" setting shrinks the TV's vertical scanning area to the correct size so as to display the widescreen video properly. This allows the scan lines that would normally be used to render the letterbox bars to be used to render the video at improved resolution.

Anyway, I first noticed that I thought that the video looked best on my computer if I forced the aspect ratio to 16:9 with my video player but didn't think too much of it as I assumed that what I had MUST correctly be 4:3 VOBs as that is how they open and are identified in the accompanying .IFOs. But today I was comparing the two 4:3 conversions I made (patch versus framerate) on my TV and just for the heck of it set my TV to "16:9 Enhanced". The video looks better like this. I don't mean quality-wise, but I mean that the aspect ratio looks more correct (I think), just as I thought I had noticed on my computer. I am beginning to suspect that the aspect ratio should be 16:9 as this is supposed to be a high quality satellite broadcast and I would think that it would be 16:9, although I do not know what is common in Europe.

So, I am puzzled. I do not understand how, if the aspect ratio is supposed to be 16:9, these VOBs and .IFOs ever became 4:3. Did the person who captured this video just not know what they were doing when they authored them? I have since altered the .IFOs to force 16:9 display with my video player on my computer but the VOBs are still, of course, 4:3. There is nothing I can do about that until I do another framerate conversion, at which point I plan to try to convert them to 16:9. But I am now wondering if I should just leave them 4:3 and use my TV's "16:9 Enhanced" setting and view the video as if they are anamorphic 16x9. This will actually give me better quality at 16:9 than converting them to 16:9 will yield.

And, honestly, I am not entirely certain that the video should be 16:9 and not the 4:3 at which they seem to have been authored. But, if you look at these 2 pics, you can see why I am leaning toward 16:9. So, as I said, if it should be 16:9, I am really puzzled as to why they are now 4:3 with 4:3 IFOs. Am I making any sense?

[jman98]

Consumer friendly DVD authoring programs sometimes only produce 4:3 output. This is just the safest way to operate with, well, potentially dumbass consumers who don't know what they are doing.

Your video looks right at 16:9. It is possible to change the display flag in an IFO without re-authoring. You just have to save the change in the IFO. IFOEdit can easily do this, but you'll need to find a guide on doing this. You need to change this value in 2 places - in the main IFO and the IFO associated with the movie. Try changing it and see if it looks OK on a PC before you burn it.

European satellite might be 16:9 if the source was HD, but if it was standard definition, it's 4:3.

I generally discourage people from the old PAL/NTSC patch method trick and from doing format conversions. Unless this is a one shot deal, it's just better to buy a DVD player that can convert PAL to NTSC and get on with your life rather than spending a lot of time changing PAL to NTSC video.

[AlanHK]

See http://www.dvdr-digest.com/articles/article_ifoedit_16-9flag_page1.html

[blutarsky]

Thanks a lot for the reply.

Consumer friendly DVD authoring programs sometimes only produce 4:3 output. This is just the safest way to operate with, well, potentially dumbass consumers who don't know what they are doing.

Yeah. I was just really puzzled as to how they got to be 4:3. Could it have somehow have been meant to be anamorphic widescreen? The reason I ask this is because, resolution aside, it behaves just like an anamorphic widescreen DVD does with my player and TV. With my player set to 16:9, anamorphic WS sent to my 4:3 CRT TV displays as vertically stretched 4:3 until I use the TV's "16:9 Enhanced" setting to scrunch it down.

Your video looks right at 16:9. It is possible to change the display flag in an IFO without re-authoring. You just have to save the change in the IFO. IFOEdit can easily do this, but you'll need to find a guide on doing this. You need to change this value in 2 places - in the main IFO and the IFO associated with the movie. Try changing it and see if it looks OK on a PC before you burn it.

Oh, I know how to do this, I think. Believe me. I have IFOs out the wazoo right now. Are you saying to just leave the VOBs 4:3 and simply change the display flags? Will the VOBs at some point during the conversion process be changed to 16:9 simply because of the display flags saying 16:9 or will I still have to force this? The native VOBs are definitely 4:3 right now, no matter how you slice it.

And, as I said, with my TV's "16:9 Enhanced" capability it might be best for me to just leave them 4:3 and let my TV scrunch them down to 16:9. Will actually look best that way. Not sure if I would be able to scrunch it like that once I do get a 16:9 TV, but I assume there would be a way to do this. No biggie either way. If need be I can just reauthor it.

European satellite might be 16:9 if the source was HD, but if it was standard definition, it's 4:3.

Yeah, I think it must have been HD. As evidenced by those pics and since you agree that 16:9 looks correct, too, I'd have to assume that it was originally broadcast at 16:9.

I generally discourage people from the old PAL/NTSC patch method trick and from doing format conversions. Unless this is a one shot deal, it's just better to buy a DVD player that can convert PAL to NTSC and get on with your life rather than spending a lot of time changing PAL to NTSC video.

Yeah, I know that the patch method is a dirty way to do it and that did produce some pretty twitchy results with my player. I didn't even try it until yesterday and had spent all my time trying to get Nero to do the framerate conversion as best as possible. But because my player can't be "forced" to play the PAL too well, I am assuming that my player doesn't have the correct guts to do PAL and probably can't be "unlocked" for PAL playback. I may be wrong in this assumption but I have not been able to find any reference as to how to unlock it. I would still like to be able to, as best as possible, convert this to NTSC. I consider it a great learning experience. I really have learned a ton in the last week about how this all works and the problems associated with conversions in either direction. As I said, I didn't even know WTH a VOB was 10 days ago.


Thanks again for your time. 8)

[blutarsky]

See http://www.dvdr-digest.com/articles/article_ifoedit_16-9flag_page1.html

Yep. Thanks. Exactly. I suspected something like this was what must be going on. I was just puzzled as to how something that was definitely meant to be widescreen was definitely not. And why the author didn't properly flag the IFOs even if the VOBs he recorded really are 4:3. Probably didn't know how to. So, as I thought, whoever did this actually created an anamorphic widescreen video. I thought that maybe that was their intent. Doubtful, now, after reading that link. It seems it's an accident. As I said, with my particular 4:3 TV's "16:9 Enhanced" setting, leaving the VOBs and IFOs 4:3 may be the best option for me quality-wise but, as what you linked to points out, expecting a friend to have to change their settings would not be kind, although it's not that difficult, really. A friend with a 4:3 TV with no 16:9 mode (as is the case with most 4:3 TVs) would, as the link points out, be SOL. Of course, making 2 versions that differ only in the IFO flags is a piece of cake.

So, I guess the take home message is to not worry at all about the native 4:3 resolution of the VOBs. All that matters is the aspect ratio flags in the IFOs. For some reason this seems counterintuitive to me on the one hand and very simple on the other. So, unless I change the aspect ratio while doing the conversion from PAL to NTSC, after I do the conversion of the 4:3 VOBs, whether I create the IFOs using IFO edit or my conversion software does it, I will need to go in and edit the aspect ratio flags to 16:9 before I burn it.

I looked at the VOBs in some over-the-counter anamorphic WS DVDs of mine and fully expected to find that the VOBs, being anamorphic WS, were also 4:3 like the ones I have, except with the correct 16:9 IFO flags. But they're not; they're 16:9. That's sorta confusing to me, now.

Thanks for the link!

[FulciLives]

I thought that some DVD players will ignore the IFO flag and look at the actual VOB or MPEG-2 stream and if that says 4:3 then you get an incorrect aspect ratio on a 4:3 TV.

I had a commercial DVD like this once ... one DVD player did the proper 4:3 resizing while the other DVD player played it 16:9 on the 4:3 TV for that incorrect too tall/too thin look. Turns out that second DVD player ignored the IFO and looked at the VOB/MPEG-2 stream.

So is there a way to adjust for this behavior like changing the MPEG-2 header prior to authoring?

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[Baldrick]

See http://www.dvdr-digest.com/articles/article_ifoedit_16-9flag_page1.html

Or IfoAR2WS

So is there a way to adjust for this behavior like changing the MPEG-2 header prior to authoring?

Wont it work with the old DVDPatcher?

[AlanHK]

So is there a way to adjust for this behavior like changing the MPEG-2 header prior to authoring?

Restream.

If you have an authored fileset, you could try this on the VOB and IFOedit on the IFOs to get a consistent set.

[manono]

Unfortunately FulciLives will have to demux as ReStream won't work on VOBs, but only on elementary streams. I don't know about DVDPatcher but it might be worth a try. I'm surprised that he has a DVD player that gets the DAR from the VOBs, as I thought the players read only from the IFOs. That 's why blutarsky only has to set the IFOs to 16:9 and everything's fine. Ordinarily it doesn't make much difference how the VOBs are encoded as all that matters is what the IFOs say.

[guns1inger]

DVD Patcher works very well for patching VOBs and program streams, but doesn't touch the IFO files. For completeness both should be done. I still use IFOEdit for fixing the IFO files, but that is mostly habit.

[blutarsky]

Well, sheesh. I thought squishing these 4:3 VOBs back to their correct 16:9 aspect ratio would be a fairly simple task, but apparently this is not a commonly needed conversion. I tried and what I got was the 4:3 panel pillar-boxed in a 16:9 window. Feh!

[FulciLives]

DVD Patcher works very well for patching VOBs and program streams, but doesn't touch the IFO files. For completeness both should be done. I still use IFOEdit for fixing the IFO files, but that is mostly habit.

That was the point I was trying to make

IFO change alone is not "good enough"

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[guns1inger]

Well, sheesh. I thought squishing these 4:3 VOBs back to their correct 16:9 aspect ratio would be a fairly simple task, but apparently this is not a commonly needed conversion. I tried and what I got was the 4:3 panel pillar-boxed in a 16:9 window. Feh!

Using what process ?

If you just change the IFO and VOBs with IFOEdit/PGCEdit and DVD Patcher respectively, it will play back correctly if the equipment is set up correctly.

However if you try to convert the file by re-encoding then success depends on the tools and the process.

So what did you do ?

[blutarsky]

Well, sheesh. I thought squishing these 4:3 VOBs back to their correct 16:9 aspect ratio would be a fairly simple task, but apparently this is not a commonly needed conversion. I tried and what I got was the 4:3 panel pillar-boxed in a 16:9 window. Feh!

Using what process ?

If you just change the IFO and VOBs with IFOEdit/PGCEdit and DVD Patcher respectively, it will play back correctly if the equipment is set up correctly.

However if you try to convert the file by re-encoding then success depends on the tools and the process.

So what did you do ?

Well, I'm embarrassed to say what I did. But I used a readily available program that often comes packaged with DVD-Rs. I just wanted a quick and dirty result, initially. I figured "how difficult could this be, anyway?". Seems like it should be a piece of cake for even a crude proggy. All I need to do for now is force the aspect ratio back to 16:9 and that's it.

What would this conversion be called, anyway?

Changing the IFOs alone worked fine with my player and as pointed out is probably the best way to do it quality-wise, but I still would like to actually convert them to 16:9 VOBs. I'll futz with DVD Patcher tomorrow. Between the PAL to NTSC conversion and now this, this is turning into a real PITA just for a 71 minute long concert video, even if it is one of my fave musicians.

[blutarsky]

ooops. please delete.

[manono]

Well, I'm embarrassed to say what I did. But I used a readily available program that often comes packaged with DVD-Rs. I just wanted a quick and dirty result, initially. I figured "how difficult could this be, anyway?". Seems like it should be a piece of cake for even a crude proggy. All I need to do for now is force the aspect ratio back to 16:9 and that's it.

Sounds like some Nero garbage. It's not a piece of cake, crude program or not. And why reencode when it's not necessary? Changing the IFO is enough for you. If you insist, change the DAR flag in the VOBs using DVDPatcher, but don't reencode if you can possibly avoid it. Even done right it'll still result in unnecessary degradation of the video quality.