Aspectratio and SVCD,...... ?

[AE-35]

When I play a 16x9 DVD on a 4x3 TV my DVD player (Pioneer 535) letterboxes the picture (or pan and scan).
Now when I encode a SVCD and set the aspectratio to 16x9 my player doesn't letterbox it, so my question is : is a DVD player capable of letterboxing a SVCD witch is encoded with an aspectratio of 16x9 or doesn't SVCD support letterboxing or pan and scan at all ?

[VidGuy]

SVCD can be authored in 16x9 or 4x3 - the DVD players just don't seem to pay attention (or maybe none of the authoring programs set the right bits to tell it - not sure which). I've never heard of someone getting this to work, though

[simply]

I make my VCD's anamorphic....
decode the file 16:9.....
and no margin(keep aspect ratio)
So on my tv,I can watch it in WideScreen-Anamorphic
(means squeezt)

[VidGuy]

So what does the letterboxing for you to fix the aspect ratio for the TV? Or do you just watch it "extra-high"?

[simplepeep]

I usually just encode to 16:9, and use the custom option 360x240 (which is half of 720x480) and it always turns out right. The picture is smaller than original but the aspect seems correct. Also the smaller picture plays a lot smoother if using 2500 or under bit rate. When you have a large pic the bitrate needs to be higher in order to play smooth..IMHO.

[hitechjunkie]

ae-35
when you set the aspect ratio to 16:9, is that for the source video or the output video or both? if you are viewing it on a 4:3 TV, then your output video aspect ratio should be 4:3. the source should obviously be set to 16:9 for a 16:9 source.

[AE-35]

Thanks for the replies but I think that it's not exactly clear what I mean.
When I encode a SVCD at 16x9 (output aspectratio) and watch it on a 4x3 TV my DVD player doesn't do it's magic letterboxing trick like it does when playing a 16x9 DVD.
Offcourse I can get the correct proportions for watching on a 16x9 TV but when I want to view it on a 4x3 TV the picture gets squeezed horizontaly.
With a DVD my player solves this by letterboxing the picture and all I want is that it does that with my SVCD too.
To be short, I want to be able to view a SVCD on a 16x9 and on a 4x3 TV in the correct proportions.

[hitechjunkie]

a neat feature in TMPGEnc v12g is the preview window using the "clip" filter.

for a 480x480 SVCD from a 16:9 DVD, assuming all black borders have already been clipped out, bring up the clip filter config window and try this:

- set aspect ratio to "Center (custom size)"
- set the custom size to 640x480 (4:3 aspect ratio)
- adjust the vert rez* (the 480) downward until the aspect ratio "looks" correct - you may need to scroll through the movie to find an appropriate frame for determining correct aspect ratio
- finally, set the horiz rez back down from 640 to 480

this i find provides the most accurate aspect ratio for all of my different rez XVCDs. it should also work for the SVCD rez of 480x480.

*note: the vert rez must be set to some multiple of 16

[hitechjunkie]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
When I encode a SVCD at 16x9 (output aspectratio) and watch it on a 4x3 TV my DVD player doesn't do it's magic letterboxing trick like it does when playing a 16x9 DVD.
Offcourse I can get the correct proportions for watching on a 16x9 TV but when I want to view it on a 4x3 TV the picture gets squeezed horizontaly.
With a DVD my player solves this by letterboxing the picture and all I want is that it does that with my SVCD too.
To be short, I want to be able to view a SVCD on a 16x9 and on a 4x3 TV in the correct proportions.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

sounds like you want an anamorphic SVCD. i don't know if this is possible...

[Ton]

You can make an anamorphic SVCD, but then your TV must support conversion to 16x9 because standalone DVD players are only designed to do this for DVD's. There is nothing to trigger the DVD player to know that it is an anamorphic SVCD.
Most 16x9 sets will do this or 4:3 sets like Sony's XBR line can display anamorphic video in a 16x9 window on the TV.

In other words if you have a basic 4:3 TV you are screwed. You need a TV with some type of 16:9 support. The DVD player just wont do in player letterboxing for you on SVCD's.