Output aspect ratio

[mysticgohan17]

If I change the output aspect ratio in Tsunami will I end up using less of the standard 1150kbit VCD bitrate on the letterboxing at the top of the video? If so, will It display correctly on my DVD player? (I've done this before with an mpeg set to 16x9, displays correct aspect ratio at full screen in WMP 6.4)

[christof]

In my experience, most DVD players do not read the aspect ratio properly and display it at 4:3

Changing the ratio will not affect the encoding on the letterbox.
It just tells the software/hardware how to show the video

[mysticgohan17]

thanks for the reply im going to do a test on X-Men.

[DJRumpy]

This setting is directly affected by your DVD player settings (whether or not your TV is 16:9, or 4:3), and the aspect ratio (DAR) on your MPEG. Some players even offer options on what to do if the input video (say from DVD for instance) doesn't match your output display, they may offer an option to pan&scan it, rather than letterbox it. All DVD players are required to read and understand aspect ratio flags on an mpeg. If yours aren't working properly, then you've encoded them improperly.

If your MPEG has a 16:9 aspect ratio, and your DVD player is set to output to a 4:3 television, it will automatically letterbox your output to maintain the aspect ratio for a 4:3 television. If your DVD player is set to output to a 16:9 television, it will not letterbox the outout, rather it will simply output the mpeg according to the aspect ratio flags used in the output.

That said, a letterboxed (4:3) video has the same image area, but less image displayed, meaning it will compress better due to the letterboxing, and have more bitrate available for your image quality. If you have a 4:3 television, then you can gain a small bit in quality by doing this. Letterbox your video and put it in a 4:3 aspect ratio. The horizontal resolution is pretty much redundant for 4:3 video, as it is always displayed at full width (give or take a few pixels on the edges).

For 2.35:1 video, the vertical image area resolution should be around 276 without letterboxing (example: 480x276 )

For 1.85:1 video, the vertical image area resolution should be around 360 without letterboxing ( example: 480x360 )

for 1.33:1 video (4:3 video), the video is already fullscreen, with a vertical of 480 (or 240 for VCD) ( example: 480x480 )

If you have a 16:9 television, you can also do this, but the output will look squashed, unless you use the Zoom function common on widescreen tv's. The zoom function also introduces ugly scan lines when it's used, so you will probably want to avoid this if you plan to upgrade to widescreen any time soon.