ffmpeg Half DVD letterboxing?

[TugBoat]

I'm having differing results using the Half DVD setting with the ffmpeg engine. For some reason a number of AVIs will not convert with audio if the 'decode with QT' box is checked. I have all the codecs installed and the AVI will play in QT with audio fine, but, the ffmpeg engine will only see the audio track with the box unchecked. So I'm using manual letterboxing.

I converted two 16:9 AVIs by using 352x404 with letterboxing 38/38. A third one is not cooperating. I found that if I go lower than 404 the aspect is wrong, it doesn't display as 4:3, the thing actually displays as 352x360. Set at 352x404 38/38 it's too high, not enough letterboxing. I experimented and found that 352x404 with letterboxing 60/60 works The movie specs are different than the settings. The settings are 352x404 60/60, the progress says;
Duration: 01:29:36.9, bitrate: 1096 kb/s
Stream #0.0: Video: mpeg4, 640x360, 23.98 fps
Stream #0.1: Audio: mp3, 48000 Hz, stereo, 128 kb/s
Output #0, vob, to '/Volumes/Video/Movie/Movie.avi.ff.mpg':
Stream #0.0: Video: mpeg2video (hq), 352x524, 29.97 fps, q=2-10, 2600 kb/s
Stream #0.1: Audio: mp2, 48000 Hz, stereo, 224 kb/s
Stream mapping:
Stream #0.0 -> #0.0
Stream #0.1 -> #0.1

It's still encoding but everything looks fine with QT & VLC, err, what's up? I can't seem to find any documentation on Half DVD letterboxing. Also, is it possible to output true 16:9 aspect with Half DVD so my PowerBook doesn't display with four letterboxes? Thanks.

[junkmalle]

Shouldn't you be encoding at something like 352x360 with 60 lines of letterboxing at the top and bottom (ie, 480 total)?

[TugBoat]

I already tried that;

I found that if I go lower than 404 the aspect is wrong, it doesn't display as 4:3, the thing actually displays as 352x360

actually it displays as 352x480, not 4:3.

It finished, everything displays it as 4:3 correctly letterboxed, but also says it's 352x524. QT player say's it's 320x240. DVDSP2 gets to 92 percent then dies of a Muxer_Internal_Error. The VOBs it leaves displays as correctly letterboxed 4:3. If I could get audio with 'decode with QT' checked this wouldn't be a problem. I guess I'll decode with QT and see what happens with the audio I already have.

Is there anyway to export as Half DVD at 16:9????
8)

[major]

Half DVD has to be entered as 352x480 for NTSC, no matter the playback ratio, letterbox, crop values, etc. 352x524 or anything else is simply not allowed. To get 16:9 ratio you should enable a special 16:9 flag in the header, to do that, simply select "16:9" in the autosize popup prior to set the size to 352x480.

[TugBoat]

Hi Major,
can you elaborate a little? Are you saying that you leave the Video Size at 352x480 and also enter letterboxing values? And do you mean plain '16:9' or 'DVD 16:9' ?

I guess I'm going to do this AVI again, the 'decode with QT' version finished and apparently it tried to do the audio at the end but failed. The audio from the non-decode with QT version is in sync at the beginning but is 1/2 a second off at the end. The last progress says;
Encoding started on Sun Sep 19 09:48:35 EDT 2004
Input #0, yuv4mpegpipe, from 'pipe:':
Duration: N/A, bitrate: N/A
Stream #0.0: Video: rawvideo, yuv420p, 352x480, 29.97 fps
Output #0, rawvideo, to '/Volumes/Video/Movie/Movie.ff.mpv':
Stream #0.0: Video: mpeg2video (hq), 352x480, 29.97 fps, q=2-10, 2500 kb/s
Stream mapping:
Stream #0.0 -> #0.0
[mpeg2video @ 0x331210]rc buffer underflow
bench: utime=2082.950s
video:931107kB audio:0kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead 0.000000%
Input #0, avi, from '/Volumes/Video/Movie/Movie.avi':
Duration: 01:29:36.9, bitrate: 1096 kb/s
Stream #0.0: Video: mpeg4, 640x360, 23.98 fps
Stream #0.1: Audio: mp3, 48000 Hz, stereo, 128 kb/s
Output #0, mp2, to '/Volumes/Video/Movie/Movie.ff.mp2':
Stream #0.0: Audio: mp2, 48000 Hz, stereo, 224 kb/s
Stream mapping:
Stream #0.1 -> #0.0
video:0kB audio:147025kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead 0.000000%
**ERROR: [mplex] Too many frame drops -exiting

This is the same movie as above. I'm going to try it at 16:9, no letterboxing, no QT decode, and see what happens. For reference, how would I setup this particular movie for manual letterboxing, Half DVD, 4:3?
8)

[major]

Hi Major, can you elaborate a little? Are you saying that you leave the Video Size at 352x480 and also enter letterboxing values?

The output size must be 352x480. If you add ffmpeg letterboxing, this will increase the output size so you should subtract from the image size to get the same 352x480 as a result.

And do you mean plain '16:9' or 'DVD 16:9' ?

Both will enable the mpeg-2 16:9 flag.

For reference, how would I setup this particular movie for manual letterboxing, Half DVD, 4:3?

Disable 'Decode with Quicktime', set half DVD size, add letterboxing values, decrease size accordingly so as size+letterboxing = 352x480.

[junkmalle]

Half D1 must have a frame size of 352x480 (except for PAL). It doesn't matter if the content is 4:3 or 16:9. You then specify how the DVD player should display this with the 4:3 or 16:9 flag. There are two ways you can approach this: 1) Letterbox the image before encoding (ie, add black borders) and tell the DVD player to use a 4:3 picture aspect ratio. 2) Have the image fill the entire 16:9 frame size and tell the DVD player to letterbox it when played. Which approach you take depends on whether your goals are: to create a DVD with the best image quality (although then you'd probably want to use full D1), or a DVD with a longer playing time. Since you're using half D1 I assume you're trying to extend playing time. It also depends on some extent the the quality of your source (if you have a low quality source it doesn't make sense to make a high quality DVD, you'll just get a big, low quality picture).

It sounds like you're starting with a 640x360 AVI file. Since that is already 16:9 aspect ratio (assuming 1:1 pixel aspect ratio on a computer monitor) you want to squish the picture to about 352x360, add 60 lines of black at the top and bottom to get a final frame size of 352x480. Then use the aspect ratio flag to tell the DVD player to display that as 4:3 -- because the letterboxing is already included in the frame.

If you want to take the "high" road, adjust the 640x360 picture by shrinking it horizontally to 352 ann stretching it vertically to 480. Then tell the DVD player to display that with a final picture aspect ratio of 16:9 -- ie, have the DVD player add the letterboxing for display on a 4:3 TV, or just stretch it horizontally on a 16:9 TV.

[TugBoat]

Thanks!

Uh.... I have no idea what happened the last time. Apparently....after the failure bong and exiting message...it kept going? After the exiting message I checked the MP2 file and it was around 65MB, which I knew was too small. So I tried the new video file and old audio which didn't sync. After I posted the last time I checked the MP2 again, just before I was going to trash it, and it was 143.5MB! It says created 11:30 Modified 12:40? That doesn't sound right. I threw the two new files into DVDSP, they were in sync. Ten minutes later I had a built DVD on my HD that worked great. Like I said, I have no idea

I still want to try the thing as 16:9

**********
It Works. 16:9 Half DVD. I have a lot of 16:9 AVI TV episodes that I want squished onto a DVD. I also have a PowerBook. And when you play a 16:9 video as letterboxed 4:3 on a Widescreen... You get a small picture surrounded by black. True 16:9 gives an almost full screen with small upper/lower boxing. Thanks guys.

[TugBoat]

Well, it works with source material that is 16:9. I have another movie that is truly widescreen. Specs are;
uh. Anyone have the problem where if you try to enlarge the Progress Window it shrinks to where you can't get to the Info buttons? I had about 5 attempts saved, but now I can't get to the button. I'll run another...Specs;
Encoding started on Tue Sep 21 07:31:53 EDT 2004
Input #0, avi, from '/Volumes/Video/Movie/MovieCD1.AVI':
Duration: 01:05:22.2, bitrate: 1490 kb/s
Stream #0.0: Video: mpeg4, 640x272, 25.00 fps
Stream #0.1: Audio: mp3, 48000 Hz, stereo, 157 kb/s
Output #0, vob, to '/Volumes/Video/Movie/MovieCD1.AVI.ff.mpg':
Stream #0.0: Video: mpeg2video (hq), 352x480, 29.97 fps, q=2-10, 2300 kb/s
Stream #0.1: Audio: mp2, 48000 Hz, stereo, 224 kb/s
Stream mapping:
Stream #0.0 -> #0.0
Stream #0.1 -> #0.1

The problem is that when I try to add letterboxing, the aspect goes back to 4:3. I can export as Half DVD 16:9 as long as I don't add letterboxing. This movie should be around 720x304. I've tried my best, it just won't work with the ffmpeg engine. I gave up and used the mpeg2enc engine, but it's twice as slow and produces lower quality output. Is there something wrong here or is this normal?

[ykz]

Stream #0.0: Video: mpeg4, 640x272, 25.00 fps

hmm, i tried that too (just for fun and only from pal to pal) and using ffmpegx the outcome was distorted.

using a manual switch like this

-s 352x324 -padtop 126 -padbottom 126 -y -f mpeg1video -pass 1 test.m2v

Input #0, avi, from 'test.avi':
Duration: 00:03:10.4, bitrate: 796 kb/s
Stream #0.0: Video: mpeg4, 640x272, 25.00 fps
Output #0, mpeg1video, to 'test.m2v':
Stream #0.0: Video: mpeg2video (hq), 352x576, 25.00 fps, q=2-21, pass 1, 6000 kb/s

produces the correct thing

[major]

using a manual switch like this

ffmpegX uses -exactly- the same switch. In addition, it sets header aspect to 4:3 or 16:9 depending on the Autosize setting.

[major]

The problem is that when I try to add letterboxing, the aspect goes back to 4:3.

Correct, this seem a bug in ffmpeg. Thanks for spotting.

[TugBoat]

Man, I was just about to post a long message when mail announced a new message. So, I'll hold off on the widescreens for a while? I can really tell the difference between ffmpeg and mpeg2enc.