aspect ratio questions

[scottymac]

Ok, I have a PAL SVCD movie that was encoded with the wrong aspect ratio and I cannot figure out how to get it back to normal without it turning into an XSVCD (my standalone doesn't like those). The movie is 480x576 (The PAL standard right?) so when I burnt it as a straight PAL (because of the wrong aspect ratio) the guys look slightly fat and short on the tube. I figured that I could re-encode with TMPEG's NTSCfilm template (480x480-4:3 aspect ratio-fullscreen keep aspect ratio) and that would straighten out the wrong AR. It sort of worked, the aspect ratio was fine, but the picture was really jerky (I guess that the 1 frame per second really makes a difference ).

So I have 2 questions,
How can I change it to the correct aspect ratio (looks like it should be 480x480), keeping it as a PAL SVCD?

And why does the preview window in TMPEG lie?
(when I encoded the movie as NTSCfilm the preview looked long and skinny, but on my standalone, the picture was perfect ratio-except for the jerkyness)

I appreciate your input,



scottymac

[Truman]

Do not confuse resolution with aspect ratio. If you are aiming for PAL SVCD (do you?), resolution must be 480x576.
So maybe it is a wrong aspect ratio or it is resized wrong (the image without borders). Do you remember the encoder settings? In case you downloaded the source, you should use TMPG's clip frame filter to find the best solution.
TMPG's preview does not "lie". It just displays 480x576 with Displayed Aspect Ratio 1:1.

[scottymac]

I guess I was confused about aspect ratio, thanks

But why is the preview window different than the final product (when I first encoded, the preview showed long and skinny, final product was short and fat) how can I tell the end result before I go to burn?

Once again, thanks.

[banjazzer]

Don't go by the preview window. Just start the encode and check how the movie looks as it encodes. This is a better guide to how the movie will look, and you can just interrupt the process after a few seconds to make any necessary alterations. Then run again.

If you need to make adjustments to the aspect ratio (I wonder if we are talking about Spiderman! ) load the PAL SVCD template. Then I would try the Video arrange method=Center(custom size) and put the settings 480 x X, varying X up or down from 576 depending how you want to adjust the aspect ratio. Maybe start off with increments of 20.

However, what you are attempting requires a recode, so you may need to go to DVD2AVI to extract the audio and video before running through TMPGEnc. The basic method is covered in the convert section, which describes how to convert SVCD to VCD.

[scottymac]

Thanks folks, not only for the great information, but the speed too!

I'll be messing around with the custom aspect ratio tonight!

A couple more related questions if I could possibly bug you once more,

However, what you are attempting requires a recode, so you may need to go to DVD2AVI to extract the audio and video before running through TMPGEnc. The basic method is covered in the convert section, which describes how to convert SVCD to VCD.

Recode? The video seems fine (audio+video are in synch, and no garbled pictures) what's the difference between encoding and re-coding? And if I can open up this SVCD in question with TMPEG do I need to do the DVD2AVI step? If I don't do will the quality suffer?


Once again, I appreciate the help.





scottymac

[banjazzer]

Encode, recode is the same thing. Basically to alter the movie you will need to run it through TMPGEnc again, which means (re)encoding. There is a quality hit doing this, but you may not even notice it.

If TMPGEnc accepts the original mpg for both audio and video inpu, which it should, then that will be fine. However, if you had been recoding, say, disc#2 of Spiderman, for example, you might have had problems partway through because of errors in the source. In which case, DVD2AVI would be the way to go. Just check that what comes out of TMPGEnc is the same size (timewise) as what went in, and that you have audio all the way through.