Convert 4:3 dv avi to 16:9 dv avi

[strangezero]

hi to all...

I have a sony FQ80 widescreen tv and a DCR-pc101e (pal) dv camcorder. I now shooting videos at 16:9 mode with my camcorder and then edit and encode them (mpeg2 for dvd-r) as 16:9 with procoder and everything is fine...

But i have some older dv tapes shooted at 4:3 and i want to edit them and encode them as 16:9 so when i watch them in my tv they will full the screen and don't have bars at left and right.

How can i convert dv avi from 4:3 to 16:9 without mess up the picture (wide heads etc ) ????


Thanx in advance and please excuse my poor english

[caresrg]

I may be wrong, but won't you necessarily chop off the top and bottom of a 4:3 picture if you change it to 16:9? I don't think it's possible to keep all the information--the original aspect ratio is all that can do that.

[woxxy]

That is correct,
you need to chop off the top and bottom
there's a function called letterboxing...

reminds me of the old widescreen tv-commercials
they claimed you'd see MORE if you got a widescreen, but in fact you see less...

[strangezero]

First of all thank you for your replies....

If i don't mind loosing the "up & down" information and loosing part of the video, how can i convert the 4:3 to 16:9 without messing up the aspect ratio? (i think that's how is called)

[Quigonsean]

If you don't mind losing some top and bottom it is easy to do.
Crop 60 lines from the top and bottom, the resize to 720x480. Avisynth works great try this

crop(0,60,-0,-60)
BicubicResize(720x480)

Save your script, the load it in CCE make sure to set the aspect ratio to 16x9, then when its done encoding author it in a program that supports anamorphic widescreen. Maestro is one, set it to 16x9, auto-letterbox.
Now if you veiw the raw mpeg before authoring it will look weird people tall and skinny, that means you did it right. Once it is authored if you author correctly when you veiw the dvd on a W/S tv you will have no bars on anyside sides or top and bottom, but when veiwed on a 4:3 tv it will be letterboxed and look fine as well.

Incedently this works for VHS captures of letterboxed flicks if they are in 16x9, if they are 2.35:1 the number's are differant though the process is the same.

Sean

[Quigonsean]

reminds me of the old widescreen tv-commercials
they claimed you'd see MORE if you got a widescreen, but in fact you see less...

Uhh NO! Only when chopping up VHS caps or DV that is done "Poorman's Widescreen" In fact you see about 88percent more in letterboxed and anamorphic widescreen that you get commercially. All movies since like 1955 are shot on a camera with at least a 1.85:1 ratio (16x9) the image when letterboxed is just shrank. On commercial movies they most certainly do not chop any off the movie it is squeezed and unsqueezed from a 4:3 frame but no part of the image is cropped off. Only on 4:3 recordings such as camcorder or non letterboxed vhs do you chop part of the image to widescreen, and hollywood never does that.

Sean

[strangezero]

Quigonsean thank you for your reply....

So i quess i can do what i asked and it makes me very happy!!!! Thank you for the reply but there is one little problem...

I never used CCE or Avisynth...

I always use Canopus Procoder and Vegas Video 4 for editing (resising etc).

Is avisynth easy? Where can i find it?? If i crop lines from my video, will avisynth take forever to render???? Video is at least 2h long

Sorry for my long and tiring questions. I appreciate your help

[Luis Neves]

Strangezero, when you capture footage from your camcorder do you get and avi dv file (around 200 Mb/min) or do you get an mpg2 file (30 Mb/min)?

I bought a Sony DCR-TRV25 yesterday, and my first capture test through firewire, using Showbiz (come with my Sony DVD burner), to my surprise give me as a result an mpg2 file. Real time mpg2 encoding was carried, I guess. The result was quite good on screen.

I wonder if the nature of digital video allows for real time encoding without quality loss; this is a strange concept to me, since I am used to wait 3 hours to convert each each our of analogue video to mpg2 with CCE (some time ago around 8 hours per hour when using TmpgEnc...).

And yes, it easy to work with Avysinth and CCE, just go for some search on the net and you will find plenty of tutorials and download sites.

[strangezero]

If you are concerned only about quality DO NOT CAPTURE in real time mpeg2 cause you'll have loss of quality.
Capture your video with a prog like scenalyzer live to DV AVI and then render with 2 pass VBR which will give you a PERFECT (depends on the encoder) mpeg2 file for DVD-R

[Quigonsean]

Strangzero- they are easy, and you can wait and doit when you render you just render with cce wich is very fast almost realtime. If you want email me quigonsean<nospam>@yahoo.com
Note- Remove <nospam> from my addy before sendin I put that there to prevent spam sniffing proggies from obtaining my real addy.
I have some scripts that should work well I can email ya so email me and I'll take care of it.

Sean
Oh try the tools section grab Avisynth version 2.08 you might grab if it is there or try www.doom9.org try and find AVS Genie it makes your scripts for you you just pick what you want from pull down menus and occaisionally fill in numbers such as ho many lines to crop.

[msimon7]

can this be done with mpeg files as input?
I occasionally get a PAL SVCD 4:3/Letterbox that I'd love to convert to NTSC 16:9 DVD. i can do all that now, except the aspect ration change.
I use MainConcept to do the conversion. can avisynth be used with mpeg files and MainConcept? Is CCE any better thatn MainConcept? I like the speed/quality/ease of use of MainConcept, wondering how CCE compares.
thanks for any help....would love to be able to do this
marc

[DJRumpy]

Any 4:3 file can be converted to widescreen (yes even svcd). It's just a matter of math. For any AVI, you simply divide the width by the desired aspect ratio (1.77, 1.85, or 2.35), to get the 'adjusted' height. By 'adjusted', I mean this is what the new cropped height will be, to achieve the aspect ratio you want.
For example:

If your video is 640x480. This video is 4:3 (1.333 decimal). Lets say you want to convert it to 2.35:1 video. Simply divide 640 by 2.35 to get your new vertical height. 640 / 2.35 = 272.

Crop your video's vertical from 480 to 272, and your video is now 16:9

SVCD is done using the same method. Simply divide the width, by the required aspect ratio. However, you must first stretch the video back out to it's full width before doing so. Since SVCD supports only 4:3 video, this means you must multiply the height by 1.333 to find the real width, and then divide that real width by your aspect ratio:

480 * 1.333 = 640
640 / 2.35 = 272

Just make sure your crop values are always in even numbers, to prevent you from changing the field order.