WIDEscreen movie SVCD: aspect ratio is wrong

[SipkeH]

Hello,

I created my first Widescreen Movie using Premiere 6.0. It's in DV format. I'd like to convert to MPEG2 and play it on my cyberhome 528/4:3 TV. I used TMPGEnc 12a and burned to CD (SVCD format: 480x576 and XSVCD format: 720x576) using Nero 5.5.5.1. I expected the CH to add horizontal bars to make it letterbox and correct the aspect ratio, but it didn't. It played full screen, so the aspect ratio is wrong. Should I burn in DVD-format instead of SVCD format?
One last thing: I don't want to add horizontal bars myself, because I also wish to play the disc on a widescreen TV in the future.

Thanks for your help. FAQ or tutorial about widescreen welcome!

Sipke Houtepen

my specs:
- Sony DCR-TRV15 camera:
- Pixel aspect Ratio: D1/DV PAL Widescreen 16:9 (interlaced) 1.422 (720x576)
- Firewire + Premiere 6.0 + TMPGEnc + CD-ReWriter + Nero 5.5.5.1
- CyberHome 528 + Sony 4:3 TV

[JamieBecks23]

On TMPGEnc, make sure you change "full screen" to "full screen, keep aspect ratio"

[SipkeH]

Thanks for your fast reply!

I tried your solution, but it didn't correct the problem.

I think the DVD-player automatically chooses a 4:3 aspect ratio because it detects a SVCD and all prerecorded SVCD's are in 4:3 (I guess).

The key issue here is that when playing 16:9 DVD-Videos, the player adjusts automatically to the 4:3 TV, i.e. the player adds horizontal bars to get the aspect ratio corrected. If I play on a 16:9 TV, no bars are added by the DVD player.
So the fact that my player doesn't add bars for my SVCD indicates that it doesn't recognise the content to be in 16:9. It "thinks" it's 4:3.

So maybe I need to use the DVD-format (supported by Nero from version 5.5.8.0) in order to make the player recognise the 16:9 format?

Sipke

[Truman]

SVCD does not support DAR 16:9, only 4:3. So if you select DAR 16:9 in TMPG, a 4:3 TV will display it as DAR 4:3 anyway, i.e. stretched vertically.
You can try to burn as DVD, but if you burn to CD-R you will end with a so-called mini DVD, most players refuse to play it. Also SVCD resolution is is not DVD compliant and the GOP length is limited to 15 frames / GOP.
Good luck.

[SiCN]

It's quite simple actually. Here some situations (TMPGEnc as encoder, and DVD Player does not recognize DAR 16:9 Tag):

- DVD is Widescreen and you want to have a Letterboxed 4:3 SVCD (with black bars on the top and bottom): You open the source in TMPGEnc. Choose 16:9 as "Source Aspect Ratio" on the Advanced Tab, Video arrange Method to "Full Screen (keep aspect ratio)" (also Advanced Tab) and on the Video Tab you set Aspect Ratio to 4:3.

- DVD is Widescreen and you want to have a Widescreen SVCD... Simply set Source Aspect Ratio to 16:9, Arrange Method to "Full Screen" and output aspect ratio can again stay at 4:3, if you want to 16:9, but no DVD Player will detect it and automatically switch the TV to Widescreen, so you have to switch to Widescreen on your TV manually.

- DVD is Letterboxed 4:3 and you want to convert it to Widescreen SVCD. That requires a bit more doing, since you gotta crop the frame a little. But okay: First load the source, set Source Aspect Ratio to 4:3, then do a "Clip Frame" and remove the black bars from the frame and finally, set Video Arrange Method to Full screen. Output aspect doesn't matter here either, but make 4:3 so that it follows the standard.

Last to methods will only work on your 4:3 TV if you can manually set that TV to 16:9. The first one works fine on any 4:3 TV but requires upsizing to 16:9 on a widescreen TV, which looks slightly worse, unless you have a high res TV.

[SipkeH]

Ah...

I see you mention a DAR 16:9 tag. I never heard of this. Could you please explain or do you have a link to a good FAQ or useful site?

I suppose when you burn to DVD-format, this tag-thing is being written automatically? And my DVD player might recognise it? Will Nero write this tag?

Thanks in advance!

Sipke

[SiCN]

Hi Spike,

the tag is actually written in the header of the MPEG2 file, så Nero will of course burn it to the disc. But unless you create a DVD-compliant MPEG2 file and burn it to a DVD there will not be many players which actually will use it.

DAR stands as far as I know for Display Aspect Ratio, so go figure what it is for The DAR tag tells the DVD Player if the MPEG2 file is 4:3, 16:9, 14:9, etc.

[SipkeH]

You say I should create a DVD-compliant MPEG2 file and burn it to a DVD.

1. Is it really necessary to burn it to a DVD or can I also burn it to CD using DVD-Video format (miniDVD)?
2. How do I create a DVD-compliant MPEG2 file? Does this depend on the program/encoder? I use TMpgEnc 12a. As far as you or anyone else know, does it create a DVD-compliant MPEG2 file?

Thanks,

Sipke

[Faceman101]

TMPGEnc

Setting: Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Advanced: Source Aspect Ratio: 16:9 625 Lines PAL

Did you try that?

[SiCN]

@SpikeH:

1. You can burn it to a CD, but not many DVD players will play a mini-DVD. Go with SVCD, it will work much better. Just set source to 16:9 and target aspect ratio to 4:3, as I explained in one of my previous posts.

2. Of course you can create such a file in TMPGEnc 12a as well, encode the file with these settings:
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Resolution: 720x576
- Use CBR if you use DVD-R discs, since VBR doesn't seem to work that well with DVD-R.
- Increase DC Compensation to 9 or 10, depending on the bitrate you use. If it is a very low bitrate (under SVCD max bitrate, which is 2777) then use 8.
But almost most important is that you multiplex your audio and video file as a DVD-compliant MPEG2 file.

[SipkeH]

Thanks everyone for your attention and effort!

Please be patient with me as I may be missing something here, so I will lay down my thoughts to clear it up hopefully...

The thing is: for best quality, I would like to use all 576 vertical lines for image. If I encode 4:3 and still keep normal aspect ratio on a 4:3 TV, this will have to add upper+lower black bars ENCODED in the file! So I'd have only 432 lines of image in my file. I don't want that, because it's loss of quality. I want to encode 720x576 widescreen (using all pixels for image) AND I want the DVD player to detect the widescreen "tag" i.e. to add the upper and lower black bars itself if played back on my 4:3 TV or - on my 16:9 TV - display the full picture, just like it does with a DVD Video Disc.

Furthermore, I am pretty sure my DVD player (CyberHome 528) will play the miniDVD. I selected this player especially for maximum compatibility. For instance, it plays SVCD in 720x576 CBR 5000+. In addition to that, I am planning on getting a DVD burner soon, so the CD/(mini)DVD issue isn't really important for me.

So basically my question is: does SVCD format support the widescreen DAR 16:9 tag (or whatever it is that makes the DVDplayer detect the presence of widescreen) or does it not and do I need to use the DVD-video format to get my player detect widescreen and act accordingly?

Thanks a lot!

Sipke