Convert m2v 4:3 to 16:9?

[ADigitalMan]

Pardon if this has been covered. If so, please redirect me to the proper thread.

I have two sources in M2V format that I wish to stitch together in Womble MPEG Video Wizard. Unfortunately, the two sources are 16:9 Anamorphic (with some letterboxing) and 4:3 FF (with a lot more letterboxing). Both have the "watchable" aspect ratio of 2:35:1.

How can I "blow up" the 4:3 files so that they become 16:9, cropping off some of the letterboxing to keep the watchable aspect ratio intact? I tried converting in Womble, but this only stretched the FF image to 16:9 without cropping and reencoding. It did not actually blow up the image.

[reboot]

You need to re-encode both files to the same aspect/format.

[ADigitalMan]

Is there a recommended guide/process for doing this, starting with the M2V source that I have?

[reboot]

Ideally, you could only encode one, to match the other.
For a 4:3 TV, I would open one in virtualdub, crop off any existing letterboxes, and frameserve to your encoder.
Specify 16:9 source, and output 4:3 NTSC.
Do the same to the second one.
Join in womble.
What encoder are you going to use?
Tmpgenc has the ability to crop, so you could save the frameserving step.
I do think that mainconcept will also do it, although I usually frameserve, so haven't tried it personally.

[ADigitalMan]

I'm currently trying this method:
Leave the primary source alone and modify the secondary source only.

Open secondary source in VirtualDub Mpeg2
Crop black bars, bringing image down to [720x360].
Resize to 720x480 (stretching the image upwards).
Export to AVI.

Then in TMPGEnc 2.5, open the AVI and export according to the DVD-NTSC 16:9 settings. I'm having problems here, detailed below.

I'm curious if this will allow me to join in Womble without further reencoding. I'm curious about the bitrate settings capping out at 8000. I seem to recall this being an issue in the past. How do I get that setting to 9800? TMPGEnc doesn't seem to want to accept it? Or does it matter in the end?

EDIT:
I've added in the step of de-interlacing in between my cropping and my resizing, as the video appears to be interlaced.

Beyond that, both my output AVI and my reencoded M2V files are way out of sync. With my little understanding, I believe this to be related to 3:2 pulldown. I have tried setting the 3:2 pulldown flag (or so I think) when reencoding but the sync remains off by the end. It's off by about 3 seconds for about 3 minutes of video. Does this sound like 3:2 pulldown to you?

BTW, the video and audio are separate streams during all steps; they are not muxed together. The source files sync up fine in womble but the output AVI is out of sync, as is the reencoded M2V.

EDIT2:
I read in This thread that I needed to crop 60 from top and bottom, not 38, for the NTSC source I'm working with. I still have the sync problem though.

EDIT3:
The length of my M2V source video is 0:2:45:09. The length of the output AVI is 0:2:48:06. The length of the reencoded M2V is 0:2:48:03

[ADigitalMan]

Still having a little trouble getting source two into the proper format. Can anybody confirm if I'm doing this right?

1) Open source in VirtualDub-MPEG2
2) Create a Video filter with the following settings:
- New Width 720
- New Height 480
- Nearest Neighbor
- Cropping set at 60 on Y1 and 60 on Y2
(All this is on one filter)

3) Save as AVI

Then open the AVI in TMPGEnc.
I'm really unsure what settings I need here, as the source is still believed to be 4:3. I tried changing to 16:9 but the result was still 4:3 so I'm doing something wrong.

*sigh*

Any further help? Any config files you can send or recommend for this operation?

P.S. Source 2 is interlaced but Source 1 is not. Should I de-interlace Source2 and if so, in which step?

[ADigitalMan]

Anybody know where I can find Lanczos? I didn't see it listed in the tools section and a forum search provided some discussions mentioning the tool, but I didn't uncover a link to the tool itself.

Thanks.

[Baldrick]

You can find lanczos in virtualdub under the resize filter. It is a resize algorithm and no tool.

[ADigitalMan]

Ah ... that explains my inability to find it.

As always, thanks.