Can't encode to proper aspect ratio

[Xenon2005]

I have some TV episodes that were captured in wide-screen format (not by me). I am converting them to DVD and burning them with Nero Vision 4. When I play them on my wide screen TV, I get black bars at top and bottom. I don't understand why this is happening. Since they were captured in wide-screen format shouldn't it fill up the whole screen?

[thecoalman]

Waht you have is 4:3 video with a 16:9 video overlayed. In other words the black bars are part of the video.

[guns1inger]

Are their black bars on the capture file before you converted them to DVD ?
What format are they in now ?
How are you converting them ?

If they were captures widescreen then you would not expect to see any bars in the cpature file. When encoding and authoring you must make sure that at each step you are working in 16:9 format. I would start using something better than NeroVision for conversion.

[thecoalman]

If they were captures widescreen then you would not expect to see any bars in the cpature file.

Let me clarify this, they would be there if your analog source is VHS, broadcast TV or from a DVD player that has letterboxed the video. In other words if the analog signal you are capturing displays 16:9 correctly on a 4:3 TV then the black bars are part of the video.

Here's an example, this is a raw(resized) screencap from 16:9 footage. Notice everthing looks a little skewed vertically.

Edit: Actually this a great pic for an example, notice the two circles on the banner have taken an egg shape in the following example.



When you encode this as 16:9 there's a flag inserted that tells the DVD player that the correct aspect to display it is 16:9 So if your viewing on a 4:3 TV it inserts the black bars into the analog signal and it looks like this:



If your video looks like the above the best thing you can do now is encode as 4:3 and use the zoom on your DVD player to enlarge.

For future reference if your source is VHS or regular broadcast TV then your stuck with it.

If it's a digital signal I'm not so sure.... the digital receiver could act just like a DVD player and add the black bars for correct display perhaps someone else can clarify that.

If your source is a DVD skip the capture process and rip it with DVDDecrypter.

[guns1inger]

For Aus DB everything is 16:9 and the player then either centres for fullscreen 4:3, or adds matte bars for letterboxing. I am guessing it would be similar elsewhere. So if the cap comes from a DB then it will probably be determined by how the player has been setup to output.

I read the captures in widescreen format to mean 16:9 images capped at 1:1 PAR, so no black bars. But that is an assumption, given that we haven't even been given a screenshot to go on.

[Xenon2005]

The video I am working with is originally 608x336 pixels. Ii is of the TV show ROME, which I did not capture. If played on my wide screen monitor I have black bars. If converted to DVD and burnt and played on my plasma I still get black bars. I tried the zoom idea but things get cropped out too much.

I am starting to think thse were not captured in wide screen. If anyone has ROME from torrents they will see what I mean.

Anyway to get rid of them and get a true wide screen format? I tried using virtual dub following a guide I found, but for some reason I ended up with a HUGE file size.

[borax]

If you open your 608x336 pixel source in virtual dub, are there also the black bars? If not, you can reencode it to 720x480 NTSC or 720x576 PAL as anamorphic 16:9 video. Do a forum seach with encode + anamorphic, I'm sure there are many guides (using different programs like TMPGenc or CCE or Avisynth...) for it.

[guns1inger]

608 x 336 is 1.81:1 AR, which is less than 1.778 (16:9) and hence requires black bars or it will be stretched. To get 'true' widescreen format you would have to crop off the ends.