anmorphic to non-anamorphic

[Kinosergio]

Hello,
how can I convert an anamorphic mpeg2-video to non-anamorphic letterbox?
Thanks

[j1d10t]

Why would you want to convert Anamorphic to Letterboxed, when your DVD player will letterbox the Anamorphic video, if you have it set for a 4:3 TV?

Just wondering what your reasoning is behind doing this......

[Kinosergio]

I want to reinsert deleted scenes in a movie. The movie is anamorphic, the scenes are not. Iconverted the scenes into anamorphic and it looks terrible. So I want to try it the other way around.
Can somebody help?

[j1d10t]

Oh, OK. Just wondering.

Is your file in MPEG format, AVI format, or is it still in VOB files?

[dphirschler]

1. Reduce size to 720x360 (bi-linear is my favorite)

2. Add borders of 60 pixels on the top and bottom (so that it is now 720x480)


Darryl

PS. That works out quite differently if you are working with PAL.

[Kinosergio]

@j1d10t:
It's a vob file but I can convert it to mpeg or avi.
Can You help me?
Can I work with Tmpenc +?
Thanks

[Kinosergio]

1. Reduce size to 720x360 (bi-linear is my favorite)

2. Add borders of 60 pixels on the top and bottom (so that it is now 720x480)


Darryl

PS. That works out quite differently if you are working with PAL.

Thanks for answering, Darryl.
Do you do that with Tmpenc +? Could you describe this a little bit more in detail (maybe a little guide? That would be great.
Thank you
Michael

[j1d10t]

Do you do that with Tmpenc +? Could you describe this a little bit more in detail (maybe a little guide? That would be great.
Thank you
Michael

If you can get it to MPEG, or AVI, you can do this with TMPGEnc.

After you load your file into TMPGEnc, if you are not using the Wizard, click the Settings button, then the Advanced tab, then for Video Arange Method select Center Custom Size. Here enter the width of your video (i.e. 720, or 704, whichever it is), then for the hight of the video enter 360. This will automaticly add the borders of 60 at the top and 60 at the bottom. Then just encode your video.

If you're using the Wizard, on step 3/5 click the Other Settings button, then the Advanced tab, then for Video Arange Method select Center Custom Size. Here enter the width of your video (i.e. 720, or 704, whichever it is), then for the hight of the video enter 360. This will automaticly add the borders of 60 at the top and 60 at the bottom. Then encode your video.

Hope this helps

[dphirschler]

It's tough to make a guide since I don't know much about your project. But if it were MY project, then I'd be working with AVI files and within AVIsynth. My script would be something like this:

movie=segmentedavisource("movie.avi") # anamorphic
deletedscene1=avisource("deleted1.avi") # non-anamorphic

movie=bilinearresize(movie,720,360).addborders(0,60,0,60)

newmovie=adddeletedscene(movie,deletedscene1,11345)
return(newmovie)

function adddeletedscene(clip movie, clip segment, int fram)
{
     #fram = insert point for the deleted scene
     return(movie.trim(0,fram) + segment + movie.trim(fram+1,0))
}

Good luck.


Darryl

[Deekkeed]

I have always used TMPGEnc to make letterbox video form anamorphic. On the advanced tab I set the Source Aspect Ratio to 16:9 and I set the Video Arrange Method to Full screen (keep aspect ratio 2). Then I set my output aspect ratio to 4:3. It may work for what you are doing.

[Kinosergio]

I have always used TMPGEnc to make letterbox video form anamorphic. On the advanced tab I set the Source Aspect Ratio to 16:9 and I set the Video Arrange Method to Full screen (keep aspect ratio 2). Then I set my output aspect ratio to 4:3. It may work for what you are doing.

Thank you everybody!!!
I played around and the above described action worked except I didn't use the "Full screen keep aspect ratio 2" setting but just "Full screen keep aspect ratio". What is the difference?
Now I have another question: As I said I letterboxed the movie successfully, but the picture-quality is very poor, since the new encoded file is much less in size. Why is that?
If I think about it, it makes no sense to me. The picture is just compressed and should not lose significant picture-information and therefore quality.
Am I thinking wrong?

[j1d10t]

It has a lower vertical resolution, so you've (in a nut shell) lost some of the detail of the picture, therefore the picture won't look as sharp, or as clear. The resizing that TMPGEnc does is pretty crappy, but it works if you are looking for the easiest way. Otherwise having VirtualDub, or AVISynth do the resizing (with the resizing method Bicubic) comes out looking the best (I think). But it is a little more complicated - not as "one click" as using TMPGEnc to do everything.

[duhmez]

Danger will robinson. you cant just crop one set amont, the aspect ratio will determin the amount of cropping to do.

Is it 2.35:1, 1.77:1, or 1.85:1 ?

[j1d10t]

Danger will robinson. you cant just crop one set amont, the aspect ratio will determin the amount of cropping to do.

Is it 2.35:1, 1.77:1, or 1.85:1 ?

But if it's coming from an anamorphic 16x9 DVD, then yes, you can just use one set amount, because no matter what the OAR is of the video, it's already been converted to 16x9 on the DVD........

Think about it

Edit:
OK, you may be right about resizing - if it's another aspect ratio, sized into 16x9, letterboxing it onto 4:3 may not be exact (i.e. you might be off by a few pixels), but most likely not enough to make the aspect ratio really funky...

[duhmez]

If it's 2:35:1 it will be WAY WAY off. Unnaceptable.

1.77 or 1.85, barely would notice any difference. Personally, I am a perfectionist and went through much noob pain trying to figure out aspect ratios.

My advice is for homeboy to examine his source via avisynth or drop into virtualdubmod. If it has no borders it's 1.77:1
Little more borders is 1.85:1
Lots 'o bar and 16:9= 2.35:1 and this must be handled very carefully or it will be stretched and WHACK, and compress worse tahn it should. I've seen some divx some friends have done, they just entered n00b "640,272" after cropping out the black bars (very little black bars which means 1.85:1) ... SQUISHED ruined video encoded as 2:.35:1.

it gets a little weirder with mpeg because the pixels are stretched during playback.

What we need to know is exactly how much letterbox to convert anamorphic to 4:3 leterbox, for each of the 3 widescreen aspects.

If anyone has the specific numbers, it'd be great to post here.

[j1d10t]

If it's 2:35:1 it will be WAY WAY off. Unnaceptable.

I don't think so

I just did a test (to make sure I could back this up) (all sizes were done according to the NTSC DVD spec of 720x480); I took a picture, cropped it to a DAR of 2.35:1 (i.e. 852x362,to be the correct 2.35:1 DAR), then just resized the width to 720, leaving the height at 362, letterboxed that into 720x480, resized that to the correct 16x9 size to be letterboxed into a 4:3 (I resized it to 720x360, then added more borders to the top and bottom to make the 360 480), then resized that to the DAR or 640x480 (4:3), and it came out to the exact size it should, right down to the pixel - the final picture (not including all of the "letterboxing") came out exactly 272 pixels high, exactly as it should, according to this guide: https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=622650#622650

So, can anyone tell me if I missed a step, or am using faulty math?

[Kinosergio]

It has a lower vertical resolution, so you've (in a nut shell) lost some of the detail of the picture, therefore the picture won't look as sharp, or as clear. The resizing that TMPGEnc does is pretty crappy, but it works if you are looking for the easiest way. Otherwise having VirtualDub, or AVISynth do the resizing (with the resizing method Bicubic) comes out looking the best (I think). But it is a little more complicated - not as "one click" as using TMPGEnc to do everything.

I would like to try the resizing with VirtualDub or AVISynth. Is there a guide anywhere? Or could you write one for me? That would be fantastic!

[dphirschler]

Makes no difference what the aspect ratio of the film is. If it is anamorhpic, then it is taller (wtihin the 480 lines) than non-anamorphic letterboxed. Therefore, as long as you captured the entire frame and not just the movie area, then you can make it non-anamorphic by resizing it vertically to 360 and then adding the 60 lines at the top and bottom.

Likewise, one could stretch a non-anamorphic frame into anamorphic size (albeit without the additional detail) by simply cropping 60 lines off the top and bottom and stretching to 480 lines.

When a 16x9 TV plays anamorphic widescreen films, it just stretches it horizontally. A non-anamorphic film will be stretched both horizontally and vertically (zoomed), so it will look less detailed.

An anamorphic frame is sized for 16x9, so even if the movie has a wider aspec ratio, guess what? you still get black bars. They may be smaller black bars but they will still be there... encoded within the video frame.

If you ever capture an anamorphic widescreen DVD, I would suggest setting your player to 16x9 TV. Then you will capture the additional detail. It will appear stretched vertically, but that is because this is how an anamorphic encode looks. It's still 720x480, there is just more image data and less black bars.


Darryl

[j1d10t]

I would like to try the resizing with VirtualDub or AVISynth. Is there a guide anywhere? Or could you write one for me? That would be fantastic!

Using VirtualDub:
Load your file into VirtualDub. Click on the Video menu, then click on Compression. Choose the compression you want your output AVI file to be (I like to use Huffy, because it is a lossless codec, but it does take up a lot of HD space, so you can decide which codec is best for you). Next click on the Video menu again, then click on Filters. Click the Add button. Choose the Resize filter, then click OK. In the space New Width, enter the width of your video (i.e. 720, 704, etc.). In the space New Height, enter your new target height (since you are resizing what is essentially a 16x9 video to be letterboxed into a 4:3 frame, your new height would be 360 for NTSC, and 432 for PAL). Click the check box that says Expand and Letterbox Image, then enter the new height of 480 for NTSC, and 576 for PAL. Then for Filter Mode, choose Bicubic from the drop down list. Then click OK, then click OK. Then save your AVI file, and you're all set. If you want to Frame Serve your file to TMPGEnc instead of creating a new AVI file (if you don't have a lot of HD space), follow the steps above, but instead of saving the file as an AVI file, use the steps in this guide: https://www.videohelp.com/guides.php?link=99

If you have never used AVISynth before, this is probably an easy thing to start with, but I'm not too familiar with it myself( ), so I'll let someone else with more AVISynth experience point you in that direction

[j1d10t]

Makes no difference what the aspect ratio of the film is. If it is anamorhpic, then it is taller (wtihin the 480 lines) than non-anamorphic letterboxed. Therefore, as long as you captured the entire frame and not just the movie area, then you can make it non-anamorphic by resizing it vertically to 360 and then adding the 60 lines at the top and bottom.

That's exactly the point I was trying to make!

Thank you

[Kinosergio]

@j1d10t
Thanks for your virtualdub-guide. Now I'm having the problem to load the DVD-files into virtualdub. Do I have to convert them to .avi? I tried that with DVD2avi but I wasn't successful. Could you just explain how to get DVDfiles (.vob, mpeg2, m2v) into virtualdub?
Thank you.

[j1d10t]

If they are still in VOB files, you can use VirtaulDub MPEG2, or VirtualDub MOD to open them. Then just follow the same steps in my previous post.

[duhmez]

Virtualdubmod is a bad chice for importing vob files from dvd. DVD2avi frameserving is your friend.

[Kinosergio]

@ j1d10t
Finally I managed to get a vob-file into virtualdub (installing avisynth and writing a script which could open the file in virtualdub). I proceeded according to your guide, but didn’t have the “huffy”-compression. I just used some other compression. Despite this the preview of the letterboxed movie looked great. I saved the file as .avi and then I got no audio (which is not a big problem, because I can run it through Tmpgenc and add the original audio, I think…), but also the avi-file does not run smoothly but jerky(?). What did I do wrong?

[Kinosergio]

Virtualdubmod is a bad chice for importing vob files from dvd. DVD2avi frameserving is your friend.

Why? And how does this frameserving work? Sorry, I'm a rookie.

[j1d10t]

@ j1d10t
Finally I managed to get a vob-file into virtualdub (installing avisynth and writing a script which could open the file in virtualdub). I proceeded according to your guide, but didn’t have the “huffy”-compression. I just used some other compression. Despite this the preview of the letterboxed movie looked great. I saved the file as .avi and then I got no audio (which is not a big problem, because I can run it through Tmpgenc and add the original audio, I think…), but also the avi-file does not run smoothly but jerky(?). What did I do wrong?

Does the AVI file look jerky, or is it the created MPEG file?

Also, when converting the AVI file to MPEG, be sure to use the frame rate of the AVI file - i.e. 23.976 (with 3:2 pulldown), or 29.970 for NTSC, and 25 for PAL.

[j1d10t]

Virtualdubmod is a bad chice for importing vob files from dvd. DVD2avi frameserving is your friend.

Why? And how does this frameserving work? Sorry, I'm a rookie.

I've found that every once in a while (and I mean once in a while) VirtualDubMod, or VirtualDub MPEG2 might cut off the last frame of a video. I've used both versions of VirtaulDub dozens of times and only had this happen once or twice. To aviod this when it happens, I just join the MPEG or VOB files, and then open it in VirtualDubMod or MPEG. That takes care of the problem...

I personally don't like DVD2AVI, but to each his own.

Check the Glossary on the left for more info about Frameserving.

[duhmez]

Why ou ask?
It the video is interleaved, that is different angles or other languages inserted as alternate credits, will be whack. It also won't handle fielm content properly that has pulldown applied, and it doesn't span vobs, and vobs always require spanning. Sometimes a vob won't start with a keyframe whch can cause issues.
if you are going to rpocess the vobs with virtualdubmod, i suggest you rip the dvd and set file split to none, make sure one angle is selected only.

[Kinosergio]

@j1d10t
Both the avi and the mpeg-files move jerky ( and have no sound). Again: I installed avisynth. Then I wrote a script:
DirectShowSource("C:\vobfiles\VTS_01_01.Vob")

I couldn’t open the file in virtualdub. After reading a little bit more I added the fps-rate:
DirectShowSource("C:\vobfiles\VTS_01_01.Vob, fps=25")

Now I could open it in virtualdub. I proceeded according to your guide (didn’t have the huffy-compression though) Then I saved it as an avi-file. Movie looks good ( a little too wide though), has no sound and moves jerky.
Then I opened the avi in tempenc, encoded it as mpeg. Same results as with the avi-file.
Where is my mistake? At what point do I have to enter the correct frame-rate for what and where? Why is the movie a little too wide?
Sorry, I know this is a tough one…

[j1d10t]

Are you sure your video is PAL (25fps)? Or could it be 23.976fps, or 29.970fps? Are you trying to convert from PAL to NTSC, or NTSC to PAL? Because if you have an incorrect frame rate, that could be causing the jerky video....