widescreen DVD movies - what resolution?

[xycer]

are widescreen NTSC DVD movies 852x480 or 853x480?

[Baldrick]

They are 720x480. They are resized to 16:9 when you play it.

[xycer]

really? i thought 720x480 movies were fullscreen movies and widescreen movies were made 852 or 853x480.

so what if i wanted to convert an AVI which is anamorphic widescreen (576x240) what do i resize it to? i heard i was supposed to resize it to like 852 or 853x480... do i resize it to 720x480, add borders and just select 16:9 in TMPGEnc Plus?

[thecoalman]

(576x240) what do i resize it to? i heard i was supposed to resize it to like 852 or 853x480... do i resize it to 720x480, add borders and just select 16:9 in TMPGEnc Plus?

It has to be a DVD compliant resolution https://www.videohelp.com/dvd , one of which is 720x480.


The trouble is resizing video to a larger resolution usually produces worse results that resizing it smaller. So I would suggest 352 x 240, use a bitrate of about 2500-3000kbps. You may want to try a higher resolution but most likely you'll see the results are not as good.

You don't need to add any borders, just make sure you encode and author as 16:9. The DVD player or DVDS playing software will scale the video to the correct ratio.

[xycer]

ahh, im not thinking straight, its early =].

to thecoalman, in my past experiences with TMPGEnc plus, if the videos resolution is smaller than 720x480, you have to select "fullscreen keep aspect ratio" which basically automatically resizes it for you. Whats the advantage of resizing to 320x240? wouldnt i have to select "fullscreen keep aspect ratio" anyway?

[thecoalman]

ahh, im not thinking straight, its early =].

to thecoalman, in my past experiences with TMPGEnc plus, if the videos resolution is smaller than 720x480, you have to select "fullscreen keep aspect ratio" which basically automatically resizes it for you. Whats the advantage of resizing to 320x240? wouldnt i have to select "fullscreen keep aspect ratio" anyway?

I'm not familiar with TMPGenc or what the specific settings are.....You have to keep in mind that the resolution doesn't determine the aspect, that is determined by either the header file in the video for computer playback or the ifo file on DVD.


The advantage to lower resolution is you'll probably have a better quality video. Try some test clips using both resolutions, as I said scaling video up usally results in poor quality encodes.

Edit: If that's a Divx movie in the end the best thing to do is get a standalone Divx player.

[xycer]

heres the thing with TMPGEnc, if the resolution is smaller than 720x480 and use the default setting (fullscreen) TMPGEnc doesnt stretch the image so it stays at the same resolution as the source but adds black bars to the sides and top/bottom to fill the resolution to 720x480. You have to select fullscreen keep aspect ratio to make TMPGEnc stretch the image to the full screen again basically resizing it for you. This is an alternative and its kind of nice TMPGEnc automatically resizes it for you unlike other encoders like CCE.

what i want to do is resize it properly myself so when i open it with TMPGEnc, i dont have to use TMPGEnc's auto resize feature. The only reason why is because i heard its better to resize your videos yourself and use lanczos1 2 3 or 4 because who knows how good TMPGEnc resizes. But if there is no quality difference between resizing it with say lanczos or using TMPGEnc's auto resize feature, then i guess ill just do it through TMPGEnc to make things easier for me.

[thecoalman]

Well this is my suggestion..... set the resolution to 352x240, full screen, 16:9..... I know that option is available in TMPGenc because it would be a common attribute. That will give you the most from the source without sizing it up.

Compare that to whatever other method you wish and I'll bet it looks better than anything else. The only thing that may look better is

TMPGEnc doesnt stretch the image so it stays at the same resolution as the source but adds black bars to the sides and top/bottom to fill the resolution to 720x480.

because your using the full original resolution but not changing it's size, trouble with that is as I'm sure your aware that you need to zoom in with your DVD player to get it to go full screen.

Anyhow perhaps someone that knows TMPGenc better can give you some better advice.

[xycer]

so sizing the video down from the source then converting it to 720x480 NTSC DVD will give better results?

[thecoalman]

so sizing the video down from the source then converting it to 720x480 NTSC DVD will give better results?

No that's a compliant resolution you can author it.... It's the smallest one, same as VCD standard but if you use a higher bitrate like around 3000kbps it will look a lot better than VCD.

[johns0]

I would use 352x480 to resize to,you will get a much better picture than at 352x240.