TMPGEnc vs Cinema Craft

[xycer]

uhh ya im a n00b and you just totally confused me. I thought there were 2 different widescreens, anamorphic and 16:9 and of course full screen (4:3).

The source video i encoded was anamorphic i believe cuz it was really 'squished'. I encoded the movie with CCE and chose 16:9... it added the black bars at the top and bottom but the video was still stretched vertically.

I encoded this other movie too that was definitely 16:9. I encoded it with CCE and accidently chose 4:3 and the video was stretched horizontally. I encoded it again except with 16:9 and the video was right.

Now you got me totally confused about aspect ratios... but i think i kinda get what youre saying but i dont think this applies to my problem. Youre saying the movies display is the actual aspect ratio? like there are widescreen 4:3 movies to fit a normal non HDTV widescreen TV and there are actual widescreen 16:9 movies for widescreen TV's? If thats what youre saying, that still doesnt apply to my problem. I need to figure out how to "squish" the movie a little more so its not stretched vertically.

Could some1 also tell me how to get this anamorphic widescreen movie to look normal? do you have to check off 'letterbox' and 16:9?

ALso with TMPGEnc, do you have to select NTSC/PAL 16:9 or regular? or can you just select "full screen keep aspect ratio" in the advanced settings?

[manono]

Hi-

... it added the black bars at the top and bottom but the video was still stretched vertically.

Played how? Using what software? Not all players will respect the 16:9 DAR and resize it correctly. I suspect that's what's happening in your case. If you really encoded as 16:9, then when played, the shape of the screen should be really rectangular, rather than squarish. Maybe your player has an option to set it to 16:9.

So, what's the movie, or DVD? Did you check one of the sources I listed last time? If you can point to the DVD somewhere, I or someone else can tell you what the DAR is, and how to set it correctly in CCE.

I thought there were 2 different widescreens, anamorphic and 16:9 and of course full screen (4:3).

You thought wrong. 16:9 and 4:3 are DARs, as mentioned before, and only tell your player how to resize the DVD. They have nothing to do with the aspect ratio of the movie itself. Here, maybe this will help explain:

http://www.doom9.org/aspectratios.htm

particularly the paragraph beginning, "There are also DVDs which have a DAR of 4:3 but contain widescreen picture."

But back to your question. How do you tell if you should reencode as 16:9, or 4:3 (your only 2 choices)? One more-or-less foolproof way is to run one the vobs from the source DVD through DVD2AVI (DGIndex). Just run the Preview briefly. In the screen that will open up on the right, it'll say, among other things, 16:9 or 4:3.

[xycer]

ok, the source is a DVD rip AVI/Xvid. Im trying to encode it to MPEG2 then to DVD format using TMPGEnc DVD Author. I did all the steps but when i played it on my 4:3 TV, it was stretched vertically (but it still had black bars so i think it was anamorphic). Lucky my TV has the option of changing the DAR from 4:3 to 16:9 so i switched it to 16:9 and the picture was fine. I dont see any option in CCE to keep the aspect ratio or whatever which is what im asking.

I encoded it to MPEG2 with TMPGEnc too excpet TMPGEnc has the option for "fullscreen keep aspect ratio" and it came out right. I did 2pass VBR with TMPGEnc and 1pass VBR (+vaf=2pass) with the same average bitrate (5050) and TMPGEnc was noticably better. Im gonna try 2pass (+vaf=3pass) VBR with CCE and compare it to TMPGEnc now.

[manono]

Hi-

ok, the source is a DVD rip AVI/Xvid.

Don't you think you should have said that in the first place? Makes a big difference, you know. AVIs are (usually) 1:1, and have to be resized properly, often with black bars added, to make either a 4:3 or a 16:9 DVD. I understand that TMPGEnc can do that automatically. I don't use it, so I don't know. To get the correct resolution, cropping, add borders, I'd recommend FitCD. And when you're not sure about how to resize, I'd also recommend the AVI to DVD portion of DVD2SVCD. It does all the resizing automatically Here's a guide for that:

http://www.dvdrbase.com/showthread.php?t=25572

Here's the general guide page for AVI to DVD, including more using DVD2SVCD:

https://www.videohelp.com/guides.php?tools=&madeby=&formatconversionselect=AVI+to+DVD&h...or+List+Guides

[xycer]

ic... i understand vdubmod can do it too so im just gonna do it with vdudmod.

ok, the source is NTSC anamorphic widescreen so i want to resize it to about 720x306 right? (720/306=2.353). Then i want to open that file with CCE and do what id normally do right?

edit: doing it with vdub or vdubmod, it takes like just under an hour to do cuz it has to re-encode it. Do the programs you suggested need to re-encode it? (im guessing you would have to cuz youre resizing the video).

If you do have to re-encode it, then CCE actually isnt faster than TMPGEnc cuz you haveta resize it (unless its fullscreen) then convert with CCE.

[xycer]

nm, i figured out how to do 'frameserving' with vdub... nice.

im confused about something else now (man this video editing is confusing if youre a n00b but im learning =]) anyway... i thought youd just divide the width by the height to try to get the anamorphic aspect ratio of 2:35 so i figured out 720x306 looks right but after reading this thread:
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/archive/t222000.html
this guys says that you should actually make it 720x360 (for a 4:3 DAR) cuz theres only 2 AR supported by DVD players (16:9 and 4:3) so you have to 'cheat' and shrink it ends up shrinking it horizontally to restore the normal VAR. Is this guy right? should i resize it to 720x272 instead of 720x306?

also, what filtermode is best for resizing?

[manono]

i understand vdubmod can do it too so im just gonna do it with vdudmod.

VDubMod can't encode to MPEG2. It can frameserve, but I don't really know why you'd want to do that, as it'll only slow the encoding, when compared to opening an AviSynth script directly in CCE.

im confused about something else now

You're confused about a lot.

ok, the source is NTSC anamorphic widescreen

Not if the source is an AVI, it's not. That applies to a DVD source.

i want to resize it to about 720x306 right? (720/306=2.353)

No.

Is this guy right?

Yes. Look, try this; if you want to make a 4:3 DVD, then:

LanczosResize(720,272)
AddBorders(0,104,0,104)

For a 16:9 DVD, then try this:

LanczosResize(720,364)
AddBorders(0,58,0,58) #that last number is supposed to be a 58, not a stupid face

Or you can use DJRumpy's 720x360 and adjust the AddBorders accordingly. You should study his remarks carefully. He knows his stuff. I always prefer Lanczos as a resizer. And again, until you get the hang of it, I'd still recommend DVD2SVCD, study what it does, and then try it yourself. Here's another guide:

http://www.doom9.org/mpg/dvd2svcd-avi.htm

[xycer]

well if youre an encoding n00b, youre gonna get confused with a lot of things... theres A LOT more stuff to encoding then i thought (i used to use an all-in-one n00b converter (winavi).

i used fitCD paired with avisynth and it worked like a charm.