Capturing widescreen

[clothesburner626]

I'm capturing a DVD that states before the opening credits that it was shot in wide-screen.

I am capturing using the following:

DVD player to Canopus ADVC 100 via S-video cable and audio jacks >> into the computer via firewire >> captured as DV type II

On the computer monitor (full screen) the ensuing avi looks just like any wide-screen DVD you'd watch on a regular television. I don't know how video shot in widescreen looks the way it does on a regular television but if I had to guess I'd say it has something to do with the message: this video has been reformatted to fit your television.

When I capture a DVD that was shot in wide-screen, am I formatting it to fit my television screen or has the footage on the DVD itself already been formatted?

What I'm getting at is when I capture a DVD such as this, why are there bars on top and bottom of the footage. By bars I mean Star Wars.

Why are these here? Can they be removed? When I format to iPod, PSP, or even WMV the image looks funny because it's not full-screen - the bars on the top and bottom of the footage make it look smaller, stretched.

Is there any way to make the image appear full screen or is this always what I'm going to get when I capture DVDs that were shot in wide-screen.

Thanks!!!

[thecoalman]

Set the DVD player to play full screen and set your software to capture it as 16:9. Sounds weird but it's the only way you can do it. What your capturing is the video adjusted to play on your TV, the black bars are added by the DVD player and are not part of the video on disc.

If you can't set your capture software to 16:9 you can still capture as 4:3 as long as your editing or authoring software allows you to change it to 16:9.

Widescreen and 4:3 video are the same resolution, the aspect is set by a flag either in the ifo file on the DVD or a flag in the file.

--------------------

I'd suggest just ripping it with AnyDVD or one of the other ripping tools available... there's no conversion and you'll maintain the quality.

[clothesburner626]

I'd suggest just ripping it with AnyDVD or one of the other ripping tools available... there's no conversion and you'll maintain the quality.

What format does it rip to?

[thecoalman]

I don't use them as I have no need but it rips them as is, it's an exact copy.

[clothesburner626]

I don't use them as I have no need but it rips them as is, it's an exact copy.

What file extension?

[thecoalman]

MPEG2 is the only file format that is an exact copy since it's the only one that is DVD compliant... that or in VOB which is mpeg2 with some added data for the DVD. Read up.....

[clothesburner626]

If you can't set your capture software to 16:9 you can still capture as 4:3 as long as your editing or authoring software allows you to change it to 16:9.

If I'm encoding for computer playback then it does't matter about my authoring software...

I'm using Premiere Pro, I can easily set this up as a 16:9 session and even though I captured 4:3 it spit out full-screen exports - resulting AVIs that do not have the bars on the top and bottom - which can then be encoded to whatever format I desire - yeah?

[clothesburner626]

MPEG2 is the only file format that is an exact copy since it's the only one that is DVD compliant... that or in VOB which is mpeg2 with some added data for the DVD. Read up.....

My files need to be in avi. If they aren't - and I load them into Premier Pro - Premiere Pro will need to render them. The last render took over three hours for a 2 hour long video file and the resulting avi was close to 70 GB in size.

Capturing directly to AVI is a real time process. If the DVD is two hours long then it takes two hours to capture. The benefits of capturing directly to AVI is:

- Premiere doesn't have to render it
- only takes up between 18 and 23 gb of hard drive space

Quality of the capture looks near the original. If there are any differences, I can't tell.

The AVIs then need to be cut into individual scenes, watermarked, and formatted to three different formats: iPod, PSP, WMV.

The problem with the wide-screen DVDs has been the squashed look - the bars on top and bottom. It seems inserting the avi into a 16:9 session within Premiere resolves the issue but I'm not sure yet - I'll let you know AS SOON AS I KNOW.

So far as the DVD player being responsible for adding the bars, I had no idea. Thanks for all of your responses, hopefully this remedies the situation.

[thecoalman]

Try this thread, I have a post here that fully explains the 16:9 vs 4:3 ... The original posters question is simialr to the issue you are running into.

https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=284313&highlight=widescreen

As far as premeire I'm pretty sure you can work with MPEG providing you have a plug-in or MPEG2.. not sure what it requires, I don't use it. If not and you're going to be working with a lot video like this I would find a MPEG2 editor that wll do what you need. Ripping the video will save you a tremendous amount of time and will have 0 loss in quality going from source to HDD.

As far as the file sizes that's completely dependant on the codec and the settings you have used. The large one is probably a uncompressed AVI, the smaller ones from your ADVC are DV-AVI which is about 14 gigs an hour.

[clothesburner626]

Set the DVD player to play full screen and set your software to capture it as 16:9. Sounds weird but it's the only way you can do it.

Do you know of any DVD players that will allow you to set to full screen? I can set my software to capture as 16:9. To me it's just so much easier to capture as avi than spend all that time converting. Thanks!!!

[Cornucopia]

EVERY dvd player can be set to full screen.

Example of usual DVD player AR options (occasionally there are additional options):
1- 16:9 for Widescreen TV's (will show as squeezed on 4:3 TV)
2- 16:9 Letterboxed for 4:3 TV's (will show with black bars above/below on 4:3 TV)
3. 16:9 Pan/Scan for 4:3 TV's (will show Center portion of WS image, cutting off sides on 4:3 TV)
4. Auto, depending on disc

.........

On another note, why o why are you capturing? Just rip the disc! You'll get the best possible quality that way, and take less time. Unless your disc is SO SCRATCHED that it only is readable in forgiving settops, there is really no benefit.

..........

On a last note, if you really got to through all the trouble of capturing, editing, exporting and re-encoding, then just do what coalman said about setting the player to (#1 above) and then when once exported, set the 16:9 AR flag on the encoder.

Scott

[clothesburner626]

On another note, why o why are you capturing? Just rip the disc! You'll get the best possible quality that way, and take less time. Unless your disc is SO SCRATCHED that it only is readable in forgiving settops, there is really no benefit.

I ripped with DVD Decrypter. This is what I got:

VIDEO_TS.BUP
VTS_01_0.BUP
VTS_02_0.BUP
VTS_03_0.BUP

VIDEO_TS.IFO
VIDEO_TS.VOB
VTS_01_0.VOB
VTS_01_1.VOB
VTS_01_2.VOB
VTS_01_3.VOB
VTS_01_4.VOB
VTS_01_5.VOB

VTS_02_0.VOB
VTS_02_1.VOB

VTS_03_0.VOB
VTS_03_1.VOB
VTS_03_2.VOB
VTS_03_3.VOB

How do I convert this to an .avi that plays non-stop from beginning to end? I word it that way because I fear it may skip a chapter. Thanks!

[Cornucopia]

You can rip from Decrypter in a number of ways:

1. ISO mode (get the whole disc as 1 file)
2. IFO mode (get segments such as movie, chapter, cell, etc)
3. File mode (get individual files-IFO, VOB, BUP)

Using #2 and clicking on the main movie (usually the largest single title) will get you a VOB...

UNLESS

After you select the PGC, you select the "Stream Processing" tab. Enable it. Then choose "demux" for each stream type (Video-m2v, Audio-ac3/mp2/pcm/dts). When you start to decrypt, it will give you the elementary streams (which are directly usable in an authoring package) as well as the IFO and some chapter marker files depending on your preferences.
Note that you can choose to remove filesize limitations in the preferences, if needed.

If, instead of re-authoring, you want to re-compress to DivX, AVI, QT, WMV, etc. this is fairly easy to use these as source files with VirtualDub (Mod or MPEG2 variants).

HTH,

Scott


>>>>>>
edit: Usually, selecting the main PGC will get you the whole single movie--with all the chapters--unless you specifically DESELECT them.

[Nelson37]

You are losing lots of quality and time by using the wrong process.

A rip, dgindex will convert to AVI with NO loss and less time. Particularly if you are going to convert again. Do it the right way and the final result will look much better.

There are not many occassions in this hobby where one can clearly state that someone is doing it the wrong way, but this is definitely one.

[Cornucopia]

Nelson37, I agree with you in principal, and DGINDEX/DVD2AVI is a good appropriate tool here, but we all know that ANYTIME you go from an MPEG to another format (except uncompressed of course), or even re-encode back to MPEG, there WILL be a loss of quality somewhere.

Scott

[Nelson37]

Not MPG to d2v project file, though you could argue there is no actual conversion yet. MPG to Huffy AVI would be at worst Extremely Minimal loss, if any at all.

Now the next conversion, sure we got loss there, but the starting point would be dramatically better.

In comparison to the OP's current method we are comparing a sidewalk crack to the Grand Canyon.

[clothesburner626]

UNLESS

After you select the PGC, you select the "Stream Processing" tab.

What's PGC?

[clothesburner626]

There are not many occassions in this hobby where one can clearly state that someone is doing it the wrong way, but this is definitely one.

Yeah, I got thrown off track last week when, after ripping to VOB, I attempted to convert to uncompressed AVI as opposed to DivX or some other AVI codec. When I got a message saying I was running out of hard drive space (67 gb at only 80% converted) I completely ruled out this process and went with what I knew - how to capture video tapes using a Canopus ADVC 100. Now that I've seen the difference in quality, wow, that was a close one. I really appreciate everyone's comments. Hopefully this will all be old hat soon.

[thecoalman]

I attempted to convert to uncompressed AVI as opposed to DivX or some other AVI codec.

If your converting these to edtit as I said before look into finding out how to edit in premeire as mpeg, You can skip this initial conversion, go directly from the files on disc to whatever you're converting them too for final viewing... one step after you initially rip it to HD. This is the fastest way and the will give you the best results.

Now that I've seen the difference in quality, wow, that was a close one. I really appreciate everyone's comments. Hopefully this will all be old hat soon.

Anytime any conversion is done to video it loses quality, less is more. Converting it to analog then converting it back to digital...well ypou know the results.

[clothesburner626]

I attempted to convert to uncompressed AVI as opposed to DivX or some other AVI codec.

If your converting these to edtit as I said before look into finding out how to edit in premeire as mpeg, You can skip this initial conversion, go directly from the files on disc to whatever you're converting them too for final viewing... one step after you initially rip it to HD. This is the fastest way and the will give you the best results.

Now that I've seen the difference in quality, wow, that was a close one. I really appreciate everyone's comments. Hopefully this will all be old hat soon.

Anytime any conversion is done to video it loses quality, less is more. Converting it to analog then converting it back to digital...well ypou know the results.

Premiere does not accept VOB.

Premiere renders wmv to avi.

I have no clue, at this point, how to get an mpeg file off of a commercially released DVD.

In your post from before you said:

UNLESS

After you select the PGC, you select the "Stream Processing" tab.

What's PGC?

[thecoalman]

Premiere does not accept VOB.

I wouldn't expect it would, about the only thing that is going to accept a vob file is a authoring app... The VOB file is just a mpeg file with some DVD data. I haven't used DVDDecrypter extensively but I know that I have used it to rip directly to a mpeg file, there's other options as well. If you look in the guides section there is afew tutorials explaining how to go from disc to MPEG using DVDDecrypter.

[clothesburner626]

Premiere does not accept VOB.

I wouldn't expect it would, about the only thing that is going to accept a vob file is a authoring app... The VOB file is just a mpeg file with some DVD data. I haven't used DVDDecrypter extensively but I know that I have used it to rip directly to a mpeg file, there's other options as well. If you look in the guides section there is afew tutorials explaining how to go from disc to MPEG using DVDDecrypter.

Ok, cool. I didn't know if this was a "rip situation" or a drag-n-drop. I by all means want to drop a mpeg into Premiere and see what happens. However, I will tell you this: when I dropped an wmv in there, the conversion to avi was not only HUGE!!! but very time consuming... if that's the case with MPEG, then ripping to VOB and then converting to avi is surely the way to go. On that note, see above. There was something from one of your posts I didn't understand. What's PGC?

[thecoalman]

I will tell you this: when I dropped an wmv in there, the conversion to avi was not only HUGE!!! but very time consuming... if that's the case with MPEG, then ripping to VOB and then converting to avi is surely the way to go.

Again I don't the quirks of Premeire because I don't use it, I'd suggest you find out what they are.... I can take a guess though... Video editors usually have project properties setting, most likely there is an option to have premeire to convert the video to whatever the project properties are when you import it. Either turn that off or set your project properties to whatever the source is.... You should not have to convert to work with a source. Generally I set my project properties to whatever the source is... Then export to whatever I want.

I'll say iot one more time... If Premeire doesn't work with MPEG find an editor that does if you plan on doing a lot video that you'll be ripping from disc.

On that note, see above. There was something from one of your posts I didn't understand.

What's PGC?

Wasn't from my post but a quick google search finds this:

...As previously explained, a cell is a basic unit of playback of video and audio data. Each cell is uniquely identified by its starting and ending sector address on the disc. A Program Chain (PGC) defines the order in which cells are played back and how they are played back depending upon the current settings of the DVD player. One or more PGCs can be linked or chained to gether to form a video title (hence the term Program Chain). When there are more than one PGCs per title, one and only one of the PGCs is marked as a title-entry PGC. When a JumpTT is executed, the title-entry PGC is branched to (explanations of JumpTT is covered in subsequent sections). In simple movies, where one title has only one PGC, the cells recorded on the disc are played back in the same order as the cells in the PGC...

http://www.dvd-replica.com/DVD/pgc.php

[Cornucopia]

(off the top of my head / from memory)
The actual order of structure on a dvd goes kinda like this (from smallest to largest):

Packet (like "subatomic particles")
Pack (like "atoms")
Cell (like "molecules")
Program or "PG"
Program Chain (series of programs linked together) or "PG"
Part-of-Title (usually known as a "chapter") or "PTT" (why?)
Title (usually a whole, single movie)

They are not all necessarily heirarchical, though. It is possible for a single (short) whole movie to have only 1 chapter (it's beginning) and so it would be one in the same single Title, single PTT and single PGC.

I'm not particularly sure that Decrypter is correctly using the term, but it doesn't really matter. They are "segments" of the whole disc, usually based on the various logical sections (like FBIwarning, preview, MainMovie, outtake, etc).

When you use Decrypter in IFO mode, that's the main breakdown you'll see, the various PGC's (and underneath them "Chapters" and "Cells"--like I said, not quite consistent terminology).

........

Sounds like what Premiere is doing is creating an interim file that is directly editable, as it seems to be able to import a WMV but I know it shouldn't be able to directly work on it. It's just a decoded (to DV or to uncompressed AVI) PROXY file. That's why it "filled up" your hard drive.
BTW, with a plugin, Premiere can be made to accept MPEG files. A VOB is just like a glorified MPEG "SuperFile", so it would follow that it might be acceptable also then.

A better MPEG editor would be Womble, or Cuttermaran, as they won't try to re-encode your stuff (until YOU are ready to).

Scott

[Nelson37]

Essentially, Vobs ARE mpg files. Just slightly different, enough so that many MPG handling programs will not deal with VOB's.

DGIndex will create a "fake" AVI file, like a frameserver. Avoids the intermediate file. I would open this with Vdub, edit, If necessary save segments as Huffy (lossless compression) AVI files, add watermarks in Premiere (only if this cannot be done with Vdub), then either save another AVI or frameserve to encoder of choice. Premiere may open the D2v file directly, not sure.

You may not be familiar with frameserving, search and read up. Eliminates the intermediate files.

You want to limit the number of conversions and operations, each conversion looses quality. May not be obvious at each stage but compare final output to original, you will see the difference.

Gonna highly recommend a program to you. DVD2SVCD. Has lots of useful utilities, run it and study the log file. When you understand everything it does, and WHY it does it, you will have learned a lot about the conversion process. Also, I believe it will do what you want to achieve, or at least most of it.

[jagabo]

1) Rip with DVD Decrypter.
2) Convert VOB to MPG with VOB2MPG.
3) Convert to AVI with VirtualDubMod.

You can usually skip step 2 and open the VOB directly in VirtualDubMod.

[clothesburner626]

The Coalman, I hear ya, edit in Mpeg!!! I'm looking into the MainConcept Mpeg Plugin now....

http://www.mainconcept.com/mpeg_pro.shtml

....however, considering the $249 price tag, I'm wondering if it's worth it. I mean, if I edit in Mpeg and then export to movie, isn't the movie file going to be an avi? So there it is I just spend $249 to get an avi file when I could have just converted to avi before going into Premiere.... for free!!!

My other concern is, let's say it doesn't spit out an avi file after I've edited and added the watermark. What if the iPod encoder and PSP encoder I picked out doesn't support Mpeg? I chose the iPod encoder and PSP encoder based on ease of use and batch processing capability - with all of these other things popping up the last thing I need is to have to pick out new iPod/PSP encoders.

Thanks for your replies!!!

[clothesburner626]

Nelson37, do you still stand behind this process?

A rip, dgindex will convert to AVI with NO loss and less time. Particularly if you are going to convert again.

I loaded DGIndex but not quite sure how to use it YET. Is this going to yield better quality than ripping to VOB and converting to AVI using AutoGK?

[Nelson37]

First, you must define AVI. AutoGK is primarily used to create highly compressed Xvid or Divx AVI files. For editing and re-compression to MPG, this is bad. A DgIndex project file is merely a type of frameserver, there is no conversion. It creates pointers into the original MPG such that most other programs will now be able to work with the D2v project file as though it were an uncompressed AVI. For editing or re-compression to MPG, uncompressed or lossless compressed (Huffy) is what you want.

As there is NO CONVERSION WHATSOEVER with DgIndex, there is the least loss possible. READ UP ON FRAMESERVING. This will solve many of your issues.

BTW, this is not MY process. If you would read just a few of the well-written guides on this site, complete with glossy photographs and diagrams on the back, you would understand that this is the almost universally accepted standard way to proceed, at least before such one-click wonders as Shrink came on the scene.

You are proceeding and trying, this is good. However, there are many significant holes in your knowledge which are painfully obvious by the questions you are asking. Reading some guides would explain many of these basic concepts which you need to understand. Trial and error will get you there, but take advantage of the excellent work that others have done and advance yourself rapidly.

FRAMESERVING. This concept will rock your world.

[Cornucopia]

clothesburner626,
What's your intended final output device?

At 1st, I thought you were wanting to make a compilation/edited DVD, hence the suggestions in that direction.

Now, it sounds like you're wanting to go with iPod/PSP or other 3G type device, which makes use of MPEG4 variants and the transfer steps WOULD NOT be approached the same way at all!

A note of clarification here would better direct your helpers...


Scott