1440x1080 MKV appears 'stretched' horizontally on my 720P Plasma...

9th Sep 2013 01:20 #1

Member

This is a weird one. Normally when I play my FF DVDs, say older STAR TREK: TNG shows, they display perfectly with a 4x3 AR. And I can zoom it if I want the picture to fill more of the frame. Fine...

BUT, for some odd reason, I now have some MKVs of STAR TREK: TNG Season 4 which have been backed up by a friend of mine in HD from the original Blu-rays. Now, for some odd reason (MAYBE because it is now in HD???) these HD MKV files with the above AR (which I'm GUESSING on a 1080P Telly would display as 4x3???) display on my 720P PLasma stretched horizontally to fill the screen. I've checked the media information on the MKV files, and the episodes are indeed shown in MediaInfo as 1440x1080. But, WHY are they NOT showing as 4x3 on my telly? And, because of this, when I zoom the picture, it doesn't act at all like the 4x3 DVDs. The AR acts really weird when I try to zoom it at all.

I was THINKING of using MKVMerge perhaps to change the AR Header, but it actually IS correct. It's just that my telly doesn't display it that way.

Does anyone know WHY these are displaying stretched on my television? And, is there ANYTHING that I can do about it? Even when I run the MKVs through MultiAVCHD, THEN it's even worse because my Zoom button for my telly does NOTHING at all and I am forced to watch the picture stretched. Damn weird...

I'm thinking that it MUST be because the 4x3 is in HD. BUT.... I have a LOT of older HD 1080 movies that have been backed up to MKV that are 4x3 that play and look and zoom just fine. What is the difference?

Thanks so much for any help you guys can give!

Cheers!

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9th Sep 2013 02:20 #2

Lathe

Member

Hmmm, well I THINK I learned at least a little bit about this. Firstly, I think the deal is that this AR is NOT a bonafied Blu-ray format, thus the player / television will ASSUME that it is 16x9 and automatically stretch it. I DON'T think there is a way around this. I think what happened was that when my friend encoded the STAR TREK HD episodes, he stripped out the black bars that normally are there in the encode. On Blu-ray, it presents the entire picture + black bars in full HD 16x9. But, when you rip those black bars out you are left with an 'illegal' format for Blu-ray and I THINK that is the reason that the supposed 4x3 picture is being stretched horizontally.

Now, if I just play the MKV files themselves I DID find out that if I set my player to display 16x9 Wide (instead of the usual 16x9 Auto) THEN my zoom works just fine, EXACTLY the way it does with my 4x3 DVDs (in other words I can zoom 1.2x and almost fill the screen with the correct AR, and YES I do lose some of the image on the sides, but that is okay - I just want to be ABLE to do that if I want to : )

So, it looks like the ONLY way I can view these 'properly' and have the full zoom capability that I normally do with SD 4x3, is to leave the files in the MKV format and forgo the fancier Blu-ray (and I GUESS AVCHD) format...

If anyone has any further suggestions or explanations, PLEASE by all means let me know. Also, if there IS a way to set MultiAVCHD and somehow FORCE the resulting AVCHD folder to display in 4x3, please do tell me that too!

Thanks kindly!

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9th Sep 2013 03:31 #3

manono

Member

Originally Posted by Lathe

Firstly, I think the deal is that this AR is NOT a bonafied Blu-ray format, thus the player / television will ASSUME that it is 16x9 and automatically stretch it.

If by 'bonafied Blu-ray format' you mean 1440x1080 isn't an allowed Blu-Ray resolution, then that's not correct.

Code:

Video frame size                              High Definition  Video (frame size x frame rate x interlaced or progressive) (frame aspect ratio)
                                              1920x1080x29.97i, 25i (16:9)
                                              1920x1080x24p, 23.976p (16:9)
                                              1440x1080x59.94i, 50i (16:9)  AVC /  VC-1 only
                                              1440x1080x24p, 23.976p (16:9)  AVC /  VC-1 only
                                              1280x720x59.94p, 50p (16:9)
                                              1280x720x24p, 23.976p (16:9)
                                              Standard Definition Video 
                                              720x480x59.94i (4:3/16:9)
                                              720x576x50i (4:3/16:9)

https://www.videohelp.com/hd

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9th Sep 2013 19:55 #4

Lathe

Member

Originally Posted by manono
Originally Posted by Lathe

Firstly, I think the deal is that this AR is NOT a bonafied Blu-ray format, thus the player / television will ASSUME that it is 16x9 and automatically stretch it.

If by 'bonafied Blu-ray format' you mean 1440x1080 isn't an allowed Blu-Ray resolution, then that's not correct.
Code:
Video frame size                              High Definition  Video (frame size x frame rate x interlaced or progressive) (frame aspect ratio)
                                              1920x1080x29.97i, 25i (16:9)
                                              1920x1080x24p, 23.976p (16:9)
                                              1440x1080x59.94i, 50i (16:9)  AVC /  VC-1 only
                                              1440x1080x24p, 23.976p (16:9)  AVC /  VC-1 only
                                              1280x720x59.94p, 50p (16:9)
                                              1280x720x24p, 23.976p (16:9)
                                              Standard Definition Video 
                                              720x480x59.94i (4:3/16:9)
                                              720x576x50i (4:3/16:9)
https://www.videohelp.com/hd
Thanks Manono; yes, I have seen this same chart subsequently to posting this here; it is indeed 'allowed'. But, and here I am guessing because I am NOT an expert by any means in this, I'm THINKING that since the AR that goes with it is 16x9 that although 1440x1080 is technically 4x3, it DISPLAYS it stretched horizontally to fill a 16x9 screen. Is this along the line of what they call 'Anamorphic', when that kind of 'stretching' is done or forced?

Anyway within the BD folder, it APPEARS that THAT particular AR can ONLY be displayed as 'stretched' to a full 16x9, at least on my television with my OPPO BDP-83 player. So, I have just left the MKV files as is and set my player output resolution to 16x9 Wide, which does display it PROPERLY in 4x3 and allow me to zoom as I wish and acts the same as with the SD DVDs.

Thanks mate!

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10th Sep 2013 01:16 #5

redwudz

Mod Neophyte Super Moderator

You have a problem with our rules:

....backed up by a friend of mine in HD from the original Blu-rays.

That would be classified as Warez on our site since you apparently don't have those BDs in your possession.

Thread closed.

Moderator redwudz