DVD Tv Episodes to PC and keeping Anamorphic 16x9

[saber001]

Hi All.

I have been struggling for days now trying to get this to work.
I have Band of Brothers (to start with) that i am trying to rip to my PC. Will be played in Vista Media Center.
It is a PAL 16x9 (1.78:1) anamorphic picture. VOB files are 750x576 expanded out they are 1024 x 576.

I have been trying to use Fairuse Wizard to try and rip the episodes to PC.

I started trying to use AVI (Xvid) but i now believe that the AVI container is no good for anamorphic files.
So i switched over to MKV and the x264 to try and ecode the files however it keeps spitting them out as 5/4 aspect ratio.

I set the SAR in x264 to 64 45 which i believe is correct for PAL 16x9 video. Now although the resulting video is still 5/4 (according to media info) it will play correctly in MPC but not in Vista Media Center.

My question is where am i going wrong.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to rip these episodes to my pc keeping the 16x9 anamorphic picture intact.
Should i be trying to use a different program
I just like FUW as i have a lot of episodes to do and it is a really easy program to batch up large qty's of encodings to do.

Thanks for the help.

[manono]

My question is where am i going wrong.

Apparently your Media Center doesn't recognize the PAR signalling. Rather than beat your head against a wall over this, why not just resize them to a 1.77:1 ratio, one such as 624x352?

I started trying to use AVI (Xvid) but i now believe that the AVI container is no good for anamorphic files.

It's the same as other formats - some players recognize the anamorphic signalling and some don't. Plenty of people encode for AVI at 720x480/576 and then have the player resize them.

...however it keeps spitting them out as 5/4 aspect ratio.

That's the whole point. They get encoded at the source resolution and then get resized at playback time, just as MPEG-2 video (like DVDs) also get resized.

[saber001]

Apparently your Media Center doesn't recognize the PAR signalling. Rather than beat your head against a wall over this, why not just resize them to a 1.77:1 ratio, one such as 624x352?

That is the whole point i am trying not to resize them so that i do not lose any picture quality.

That's the whole point. They get encoded at the source resolution and then get resized at playback time, just as MPEG-2 video (like DVDs) also get resized.

Mpeg 2 videos however do play correctly in VMC and display a 16/9 aspect ratio when viewed in media info.

So there has to be a way of keeping the original aspect ratio in a format that VMC will recognise.

[manono]

That is the whole point i am trying not to resize them so that i do not lose any picture quality.

What makes you think you won't lose picture quality by not resizing? You'll just lose less picture quality. No point in trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. If that Media Center of yours won't resize (I don't know as I don't have one), then isn't this discussion academic?

Mpeg 2 videos however do play correctly in VMC

To which the obvious response is that these aren't MPEG-2 video. All players resize MPEG-2 video; only some will resize AVI/MKV/MP4.

[saber001]

My point is that i have seen it done.

I have a video file that is Anamorphic 16x9 and it plays just fine in VMC.
So simply put there has to be a way to do it.

I am mearly asking if someone has successfully done it what set up did they use.
I do not want to resize the video to a lower resolution.

[manono]

OK, as I don't rely on signalling because my DVD/MPEG-4 player doesn't support it, then I don't know what you're doing wrong. I'm sure someone like poisondeathray or jagabo will see this soon and set you straight. Good luck.

[poisondeathray]

saber001 - you must have not did it correctly.

If this is full frame (uncropped) 720x576 PAL 16:9 , then --sar 64:45 is the correct value, but mediainfo should report it as 16:9 not 5:4, which suggests to me that the command didn't pass through to the encoder

Another option is to use the container signalling, I'm not sure if VMC supports this. You would set the flag in either .mp4 (yamb or mp4box) or .mkv (mkvmerge)

Here is tiny an example of a properly done 16:9 encode (and mediainfo reports it correctly), and it displays correctly in software media players (I don't use VMC, you can check to see if it displays properly)

Cheers



sar64-45.mp4

[saber001]

saber001 - you must have not did it correctly.

If this is full frame (uncropped) 720x576 PAL 16:9 , then --sar 64:45 is the correct value, but mediainfo should report it as 16:9 not 5:4, which suggests to me that the command didn't pass through to the encoder

Another option is to use the container signalling, I'm not sure if VMC supports this. You would set the flag in either .mp4 (yamb or mp4box) or .mkv (mkvmerge)

OK.

What i did was encode the episode with FUW to a x264 MKV.
The sar was set to 64:45 for some reason when the mkv file is created is is showing 5/4 not 16/9.

I then ran it through mkvmerge and set the ratio to 16/9 and magic is now works in VMC and is displaying correctly.

I really wish i could figure out why FUW saves the file as 5/4 as i have about 100 episodes to get through and it would save a lot of time if i could skip the mkvmerge step.

Is there anything in FUW that i should be looking for to ensure that it outputs the files correctly.

If not at least i now have a workaround.

Thanks for the help.