720x544 resolution, why & how to use in TMPGEnc...

[amiableakuma]

So I have a DVD from Japan - supposedly the content on the disc is/should be "720x480" 4:3 television show material....however, when I run it through AutoGK to turn it into an AVI file the resolution comes out as "720X544". What's going on here and what does this resolution mean?

Also, after adding some subs and doing some other editing to this 720x544 AVI file - I'll then need to run it through TMPGEnc to turn it back into a MPEG for burning.... So my question is: What setting should I use in TMPGEnc to encode the video? What aspect ratio setting? I'll want to play it back from a DVD-R through a region-free player on a NTSC tv...

Somebody help me, please!?

[manono]

Hi-

supposedly the content on the disc is/should be "720x480" 4:3 television show material.

Not just supposedly. Japan is R2 NTSC. All NTSC DVDs are 720x480. But they get resized for playback. Yours was encoded as 4:3 (could also be 16:9), and it got resized to 720x544 by AutroGK. If you were to look at the 720x480 frames of the DVD, they wouldn't look quite "normal". They don't have the correct Aspect Ratio until resized. AVIs on the other hand are usually 1:1 and just get scaled. They look "normal". Maybe this will help to explain it better:

http://www.doom9.org/images/unresized.jpg

What's going on here and what does this resolution mean?

It means it has been resized for AVI, just as it would also be resized for DVD playback (except 640x480 for 4:3 NTSC DVD playback). The Aspect Ratio would be off otherwise. That is, for example, round things such as balls or a sun/moon would appear as ovals.

I then need to run it through TMPGEnc to turn it back into a MPEG for burning

So go back to that original DVD you have. Any other way, such as converting to DVD from the AVI, is inferior. I don't use TMPGEnc, so someone else can help you with the settings. But, if you intend to do this kind of thing regularly, you'd best learn AviSynth so you can frameserve into TMPGEnc, with the resizing (it'll be a straight 720x480 resize reencoded for 4:3), color conversion, and any other filtering already done. In addition, you've already burned the subs into the video (right?), whereas for the DVD conversion, they should remain selectable, like on the original DVD..

[amiableakuma]

Okay, I appreciate all that information. I still need help as it pertains to TMPGEnc though.

I burn permanent subs into the 720x544 avi - then I want to covert that back to MPEG with TMPGEnc. That's really what I want to do and seems to be the only thing that my computer makes easy. I don't really need or want the subtitles to be selectable on the DVD.

If someone can just tell me what aspect ratio setting I should use in this case, when using TMPGEnc to reconvert - that would be great.

Can I just go ahead and use the "4:3 525 line (NTSC)" setting and still get the accurate result that I want?

[jagabo]

Set the source aspect ratio to 4:3 Display, or 1:1 VGA. Set the output aspect ratio to 4:3 display.

[FulciLives]

The best thing would be to RIP the DVD again and convert from the ripped DVD files to new DVD files while making the subs "hard" or embedded.

This way there is only one conversion.

What you did was convert to AVI using Xivd or Divx then are converting again back to DVD. That is two conversions.

What I am saying is you can do what you want to do ... fairly easily at that ... by using the original ripped DVD files without first making an AVI.

It really is easy and will give you better quality.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[amiableakuma]

Thanks for the advice, both of you.

"FulciLives" - if I want to skip the AutoGK process as you suggest -- than my plan is to open the vob file from the dvd rip with VirtualDub mod, use the subtitle filter to add the subs, and then "Save As..." and into an uncompressed avi file --- is this right?

Then afterwards I would take that avi file and run it through TMPGEnc as "jagabo" suggested to be able to re-burn using the MPEG format.

Is all this correct? Assuming so...your right in that this sounds like it would save me one conversion and possibly the quality losses that I would go through when compressing with Divx/Xvid.

Is this a solid way to do it - or should I be using another?

[FulciLives]

Thanks for the advice, both of you.

"FulciLives" - if I want to skip the AutoGK process as you suggest -- than my plan is to open the vob file from the dvd rip with VirtualDub mod, use the subtitle filter to add the subs, and then "Save As..." and into an uncompressed avi file --- is this right?

Then afterwards I would take that avi file and run it through TMPGEnc as "jagabo" suggested to be able to re-burn using the MPEG format.

Is all this correct? Assuming so...your right in that this sounds like it would save me one conversion and possibly the quality losses that I would go through when compressing with Divx/Xvid.

Is this a solid way to do it - or should I be using another?

Well using VirtualDubMod is not the best way but yes you can do it that way but in the end you do NOT save an as uncompressed AVI file ... you would simply frame serve it to TMPGEnc Plus.

The better method would be to use AviSynth so you can skip having to use VirtualDubMod. You would need VobSub installed and would use the VobSub or TextSub command.

Basically you run the VOB files through DGIndex. This spits out the audio files and gives you a D2V project file. Using AviSynth you would have something that looks like this:

LoadPlugin("C:\DVD\DGMPGDec\DGDecode.dll")
LoadPlugin("C:\DVD\VobSub\VSFilter.dll")
MPEG2Source("C:\MOVIE\VIDEO_TS\filename.d2v")
VobSub("C:\MOVIE\VIDEO_TS\SUBS\VTS_01_0")
ConvertToRGB24(interlaced=true)

That would be a sample script for use with TMPGEnc Plus assuming the video was interlaced otherwise you would change the last line to ConvertToRGB24(interlaced=false) if the video is progressive.

Also the VobSub line is for subtitles ripped with VobSub otherwise if you have like SRT subs or some other text form of subs you would use TextSub instead.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman