Conversion 4:3 to 16:9

[Alwyn]

@Cholla, could you attach a un-recoded clip of your video. I don't know if a "copy" can be done with FFMpeg but AVIDemux will do it, as per my guide here (first section).

When we have a sample, we can advise.

[Alwyn]

My guesstimate is that it is around 1.56:1. I think the original head is a bit wide.


[Attachment 80257 - Click to enlarge]

In Vdub2, you can crop away the top and bottom, then put the display on Free Adjust and drag the right side in or out until it looks right, then note the actual screen pixels with a screen capture program for the ratio.

[cholla]

@ Alwyn,
I can make a snippet or sample with FFMPEG.
What format would you prefer?
I will make it from an original .VOB from the DVD that has not been encoded.
I can even keep is in the .VOB format if that doesn't make the size too large to post.
From your link the max size would be 500MB.

I do not know if the images are 1.56:1 as MediaInfo reports 4:3 .
I took the snap shots with VLC player & not screen shots with Windows.(As requested by hello_hello)
I can see what another software I have reports the resolution as.

[Alwyn]

What format would you prefer?

A short clip in MPEG 2 from one of the VOBs would be fine, Cholla. That will not entail a recode. Or if VOB is easier, we can all open those as well.

I do not know if the images are 1.56:1 as MediaInfo reports 4:3
Going only on your images, they are 4:3 because they include the top and bottom bars for a 720x540 1:1 frame size (720x480 displayed at 4:3).

If I take away the bars, I don't come up with 16:9, but as mentioned in post #7, the active video area could be 14:9 (1.55:1), which was used in the past for some shows.

[cholla]

This is the sample:
This is the info that ffmpeg shows on this .vob:
Duration: 00:07:30.01, start: 0.500000, bitrate: 6980 kb/s
Stream #0:0[0x1e0]: Video: mpeg2video (Main), yuv420p(tv, progressive), 720x480 [SAR 8:9 DAR 4:3],
Closed Captions, 29.97 fps, 59.94 tbr, 90k tbn
As you posted that is with the bars.

[Alwyn]

That's good, I think it's more like 1.63:1. Assuming the original is 4:3, when displayed at that, the whole video is 4:3. With the bars cropped away, it's ~1.64:1. I made the height 540 so the width for 1.64 would be 884 (for mod 4). When displayed 1:1, it looks like a match.

I couldn't work out what's going on with the interlacing artifacts; MediaInfo says it's progressive. I think it is to do with the mysterious IVTC; the real experts will fix that up, I'm sure.

Attached my 884x540 1:1 attempt. When you play it on a 16:9 screen, you'll have small bars on the sides.

[cholla]

I will watch your video on my TV later today.
It's 3:20 AM in Texas & time for me to sleep.
Thanks for the help.

This is information from ffmpeg cropdetect function:
[Parsed_cropdetect_0 @ 075c5b80] x1:0 x2:719 y1:42 y2:432 w:720 h:384 x:0 y:46 pts:23983 t:0.266478
limit:0.094118 crop=720:384:0:46

720x384 is a 15:8 according to an online Aspect Ratio Calculator.

[Sharc]

The Aspect Ratio of this movie is 1.85:1 according to IMDB. You would get it by just cropping the borders like (first picture)

Crop(0, 42, -0, -48)

But now assuming that your .vob has a PAR of 0.8888.... (NTSC 4:3) one would for resizing to square pixels (2nd picture)

Crop(0, 42, -0, -48)
spline36resize(788,480)

[Alwyn]

Sharc, do you have any suggestions re the interlace artifacts?

[Sharc]

The Aspect Ratio of this movie is 1.85:1 according to IMDB.

Sharc, clearly the sample is not that, even with the bars removed.

If spline resize is for square pixels, 788 and 480 is 1.63:1, as I came up with.

The original film may have been 1.85:1 but it has obviously been cropped on the sides, then some bars added, to make it "sort of" fit on a 4:3 screen.

Agree, there is a conflict with the IMDB version. See my corrected post which results in a Aspect ratio of 1.64:1 (same as your finding).

[Sharc]

Sharc, do you have any suggestions re the interlace artifacts?

The .vob is soft telecined. For viewing the progressive film frames at 23.976fps just ignore the pulldown flags or use IVTC()
If interlacing artefacts are still visible you may want to try with vinverse() or santiag(). I may try later ....

Edit: I don't see interlace artifacts after IVTC or ignoring the pulldown flags. Can you point me to some you are seeing?
If you don't IVTC or don't ignore the flags you will of course see a 3:2 frames pattern like pppccpppccpppccpppcc, with p=clean progressive frame and c=combed frame at 29.97fps.
So before resizing make sure you are working on the progressive film frames only.

[Alwyn]

Yes, it's got the pppccpppccpppcc... pattern. That's what I was seeing; the cc are combed.

When I tried to apply TFM and TDecimate (IVTC) to the VOB (and MPG) I got all sorts of jumping and carryon; I had to convert it to AVI (I used MagixYUV) and then the TFM and TDecimate came out OK.

I couldn't get any sense out of VDub's IVTC filter.

Is there a way of doing the IVTC on a VOB successfully (without doing the DGIndex thingee)?

(Hoping this isn't too drifting for the OP; they may want to convert it and will need to do the IVTC, I assume.)

[Sharc]

This depends on your source filter. It may ignore the pulldown flag, or respect the pulldown flags but may fail with random seeking.

Examples:

ffms2("HORSE(01).vob",rffmode=0) #ignores the pulldown flags and returns progressive 23.976fps and supports random seeking

LWLibavVideoSource("HORSE(01).vob")  #respects the pulldown flag returning 29.97fps for sequential decoding, but fails with random seeking

LWLibavVideoSource("HORSE(01).vob")
TFM().TDecimate()  #returns progressive 23.976fps for sequential decoding, but fails with random seeking

.vobs can be problematic I think, probably better convert them to .mpg first, but I didn't try.

[cholla]

@Sharc,
I have a .mpg made from the .vob I can post.
I may shorten it some.
If you believe that would be better.
The reason I posted a .vob is it was ripped strait from the DVD to a harddrive.
No encoding or transcoding.

I assume the codes you posted are for VDub2 ?
I have not tried it yet.

Is VDub2 what you used to determine the aspect ratio?

@Alwyn,
I downloaded & tried the video you made.
It played fine on my computer monitor with VLC.
My Bd settop player would not play the file from its' USB port.
My TV would not play the file from its' USB port.
I got the "File not supported " message.
I believe this is because of the HuffYUV format.
I had to use Handbrake to convert the file.
Then it played on my BD player.
I believe this displayed the same as the .AVI file would have.

To all that are helping me I.m not a newb but I'm not an expert either so sometimes what is posted it above my knowledge level.

[Sharc]

For obtaining the 23.976fps progressive original film frames you can In VirtualDub2
- open this Avisynth script

v=ffms2("HORSE(01).vob",rffmode=0)
a=LWLibavAudioSource("HORSE(01).vob")
AudioDub(v,a)

or:

- open the .vob in Virtualdub2 directly and apply the IVTC filter like in the attached screenshot.

and continue from there with cropping and resizing etc.

Either method should work for recovering the orignal progressive film frames.
But as your DVD has a couple of .vobs it is easier to convert these to a single .mpg, rather than tinkering with the individual .vobs. The principle is basically the same though.

[Sharc]

@Sharc,

Is VDub2 what you used to determine the aspect ratio?

No.
I cropped the borders off, and knowing (trusting) that the 4:3 NTSC DVD has a pixel aspect ratio of 8/9 (given by its standard) I calculated the frame width and hight for square pixels.

But one can do similar in Vdub, or in a single ffmpeg commandline. For a better understanding you may first want to familiarize yourself with cropping and resizing, anamorphic (non-square pixels) vs square pixels, Pixel Aspect Ratio, Display Aspect Ratio, Movie Aspect Ratio, Frame dimensions etc. It's all a bit confusing in the beginning with a lot of pitfalls

[cholla]

I'm new to vdub so not sure I did the script method correct.
I put it in a .text file & then changed the extension to .avs

The second method allowed me to crop to the verticaldemensions I wanted so the scxreen is filled top & bottom.
No horizontal strech though.

This is the error I got from using the script:


[Attachment 80282 - Click to enlarge]

[Sharc]

Yes, your script method is ok.
Just install the ffms2 plugin in Avisynth
http://avisynth.nl/index.php/FFmpegSource
https://github.com/FFMS/ffms2/releases

[Alwyn]

@Sharc, excellent, thanks for the VDub settings. Works well, seems to be the same quality output as using TIVTC (TFM/TDec) in AVIsynth.

@Cholla

It played fine on my computer monitor with VLC.
My Bd settop player would not play the file from its' USB port.
My TV would not play the file from its' USB port.
I got the "File not supported " message.
I believe this is because of the HuffYUV format.
I had to use Handbrake to convert the file.
Then it played on my BD player.
I believe this displayed the same as the .AVI file would have.

Yes, sorry, I made it HUFF just for general discussion. It does need to be in MP4 for general viewing. See the attached.

Here are my VDub2 filter settings. The IVTC is as per @Sharc's above.

[Attachment 80286 - Click to enlarge]

[Attachment 80287 - Click to enlarge]

[Attachment 80288 - Click to enlarge]

My VDub attempt attached.

[Alwyn]

@Sharc, what exact code would you suggest for AVISynth?

This code:

v=ffms2("HORSE(01).vob",rffmode=0)
a=LWLibavAudioSource("HORSE(01).vob")
AudioDub(v,a)
#assumetff()
#ConvertToYV12
tfm()
tdecimate()

Gives me a jerky result (see attached), whereas the VDub2 solution is smooth.

Also, the VDub File Info for the above code shows the framerate as 19.181.

[davexnet]

sharc will probably know the details, but ffms2 returns 23.976 fps, the tfm() and tdecimate() equivalent already done by the source filter.

[Alwyn]

Spot on @Dave, I took out TFM and TDec and it's smooth.

Thanks.

[Sharc]

ffms2() ignores the pulldown flags and decodes the progressive frames as they are stored in the .vob, so you don't need to IVTC.
You would need to IVTC only when the source filter (or player) respects the pulldown flags or simply outputs frame repeats (like abcdd) which seems to be the case with Vdub. So you have to act on it accordingly with Vdub's IVTC filter. Note that the telecining is only done at playback time by the player for such soft-telecined footage. The video frames in the .vob are progressive frames.
Full script including resizing to square pixels

v=ffms2("HORSE(01).vob") #rffmode=0 is default, and even dropped in newer ffms versions
a=LWLibavAudioSource("HORSE(01).vob")
AudioDub(v,a)
Crop(0, 44, -0, -48)
spline36resize(792,480) #for square pixels, (or zoom it to your liking)

[Alwyn]

Thanks Sharc.

[Sharc]

Note that not all TVs/players will play non-standard frame dimensions / Aspect ratios correctly. So it is generally safer to resize and pad to a standard resolution like 1280x720 for example.

v=ffms2("HORSE(01).vob")
a=LWLibavAudioSource("HORSE(01).vob")
AudioDub(v,a)
Crop(0, 44, -0, -48)
spline36resize(1188,720) #square pixels
addborders(46,0,46,0)  #padding to 1280x720

[Alwyn]

Pillarboxing in VDub2:


[Attachment 80300 - Click to enlarge]

It would pay to trial the non-padded file; padding reduces the visual size on any 4:3 screen (ipads) or a phone held upright. I haven't come across a player or TV that can't/won't properly display a file such as this. In any case, there should be a control to change the view so that it fits vertically without stretching horizontally.

[cholla]

First Thanks to Alwyn & Sharc & hello_hello for the help.
I tried both of the last videos posted by Alwyn & Sharc they looked fine but still pillarboxed.

@ Sharc I never did get a ffms2 that worked.
One problem is I have Windows 32-bit.
I guess I would have to compile it myself.
I have not learned how to do that.

@ Alwyn I set up VDub2 like your pictures except I tried to make the output 1920x1080.
The result looked & played bad.

I went back to FFMPEG & got the result I was wanting.
I never could get the Jaglo codes to do this even the one I changed more what I wanted.

This is the FFMPEG code that worked:

ffmpeg -i "HORSE.mpg" -vf "crop=720:384:0:46, scale=1920:1080,setsar=1/1,setdar=16/9" -c:v libx264 -preset veryfast -profile:v main -level 4.0 -b:v 5794k -c:a copy -c copy -map_metadata -1 -map_chapters -1 -r 30 -sws_flags spline HORSE(02).mkv

Now that this works I would change part of the -c:v to -preset veryslow -crf 16 -profile:v high -level 4.1 for better quality.

I opted for a .MKV file but .MP4 would have worked
Below is a clip.

[Sharc]

Your video has duplicted frames to make it 30fps and so it has judder. Step through the frames and you will see the duplicates in a pattern like abcddefghh..... You should decimate it and play it at 24fps (23.976fps).
You cropped slightly into the picture vertically and stretched it horizontally (about 5%) with your example in order to fit the 1.65 movie into 16:9 (=1.7778) without pillarboxes. Means the picture is slighly distorted. But if you like it that way .....

[Sharc]

I haven't come across a player or TV that can't/won't properly display a file such as this.

Not quite my experience with TVs. With some one has to force or adjust the DAR (if possible at all) to play the non-padded variants correctly. Maybe exeptions, but I thought I mention the "TV safe" padded variant.

[Alwyn]

I tried both of the last videos posted by Alwyn & Sharc they looked fine but still pillarboxed.

By design. The video isn't a 16:9 video; it's more like 16:10, so to preserve the correct shape, it should have pillarbox bars. That said, there's not a lot in it so it's your choice to stretch it to 16:9.

If you don't want pillarboxing, change the VDub resize to this:


[Attachment 80312 - Click to enlarge]

You can see the slight stretch distortion (wider heads) when you compare the original and the 1920x1080 version:


[Attachment 80316 - Click to enlarge]

1920x1080 version attached.