What is it that triggers my Samsung Plasma...

[StaffanC]

to auto adjust the Xvid film to fill the TV screen completely?

Hi there!

I lack basic knowledege/understanding for video and its properties. Resolution, pixel ratio etc.

How does it all add up?

When I rip a DVD trying to convert it to Xvid I always end up watching a 4:3 (black bars at the sides) instead of a fully extended 16:9 full screen movie.

Where can I learn the basics in order to get an understanding for what the heck is going on behing the scenes....

There is plenty of info here but I would appreciate if somwone could guide me to square 1 i.e. the documents to start with

Thank you in advance,

Cheers,

Staffan

[jagabo]

DAR = SAR * PAR

DAR = Display Aspect Ratio, the final shape of the displayed picture
SAR = Storage Aspect Ratio, the frame size
PAR = Pixel Aspect Ratio, the shape of individual pixels

For example, an NTSC 16:9 DAR DVD contains the 16:9 image in a 704x480 frame with 8 pixels of padding at the left and right sides of the frame.

DAR = SAR * PAR
DAR = 704:480 * 40:33
DAR = (704/480) * (40/33)
DAR = 1.4667 * 1.2121
DAR = 1.778 = 16:9

Either set the PAR/DAR flags in the Xvid encoder or resize the frame to a 16:9 frame size (~720x400 for example) and encode with square pixels.

[StaffanC]

Thanks a lot, jagabo!

I'll take the usual triel-and-error path

Question still remains, though!

Any suggestions for reading about frames, DAR, SAR, PAR etc. Do you, or anyone else for that matter, know of any explanatory on-line documents on the subject?

Thanks again, mate!

Cheers,

Staffan Carlsson
Sweden

[jman98]

The problem is with your DVD player. Some cannot correctly display Divx resolutions. They can only show everything in 4:3. My old Philips DVP-642 does this.