Resizing a PAL to NTSC conversion

[jagabo]

Doctor Who is shot in 16:9 PAL. Here's the original PAL frame:



I believe your AVI source is simply the full frame resized to 720x480 with a little masking at the left and right to clean up the ragged edges. The reason you're seeing black bars at the top and bottom is because your player thinks the video is square pixel and is adjusting the height of the picture for playback in a 4:3 frame. You can confirm this by opening the video in VirtualDubMod -- it will show pixel-for-pixel what's in the file without correcting for DAR. All you have to do is convert the original to MPEG2 without cropping or resizing, and burn as 16:9 DVD.

Of course, you'll see black bars at the top and bottom when you watch on a 4:3 TV. Just like any other wide screen DVD.

[buddycat]

Hmmm. Well I dunno. I did a little more noodling around, and here are the verious results I got.

[buddycat]

The above is using the script Gunslinger posted. I Used a 4:3 source and encoded to 16:9. Not so good.

[buddycat]

This one is just using the original avi, 16:9 source (NTSC) and output as 16:9. It looks about the same as when I encoded with the script and encoded for 4:3.

[buddycat]

This one uses the script, source is 704 x 480 NTSC and output as 4:3

[buddycat]

The last one is using the script, 16:9 source and 16:9 output.

[jagabo]

I recommend you post the full 720x480 frames because nobody can tell what was in your MPEG file if some software is resizing the images. Use VirtualDubMod to get pixel-for-pixel images from your MPEG files.

In TMPGEnc open your source AVI file and use the following settings:

On the Advanced tab set the "Source Aspect Ratio" to "16:9 Display". This tells TMPGEnc your source file is 16:9 encoded anamorphically. Set "Video Arrange Method" to "Full Screen".

On the Video tab set "Aspect Ratio" to "16:9 Display".

Encode, burn to DVD.

[buddycat]

So I guess what I'm seeing is that the original source, is 4:3, and should be encoded as 4:3, unless we can figure out how to tweak it to look good in 16:9. I dunno - maybe I'm just being overly picky. What do you guys think? Compare it to the pic from 5/14 pic.

[jagabo]

Your source is not 4:3, it is an anamorphic 16:9 encode.

[buddycat]

I recommend you post the full 720x480 frames because nobody can tell what was in your MPEG file if some software is resizing the images. Use VirtualDubMod to get pixel-for-pixel images from your MPEG files.

In TMPGEnc open your source AVI file and use the following settings:

On the Advanced tab set the "Source Aspect Ratio" to "16:9 Display". This tells TMPGEnc your source file is 16:9 encoded anamorphically. Set "Video Arrange Method" to "Full Screen".

On the Video tab set "Aspect Ratio" to "16:9 Display".

Encode, burn to DVD.

That's one of the test settings I did (I think it's always at full screen). But I'll put the Avi into Vdub and post the pic a little later. How do I capture a frame?

[jagabo]

Be sure you selected "16:9 Display" as the source aspect ratio. TMPGEnc defaults to 4:3 display. Remember there are two aspect ratios, one for the input and one for the output.

How to save frames from VirtualDubMod:

File -> Open Video File, select AVI or MPEG file.

Use the seek bar near the bottom of the window to find the frame you want. You can use the left/right arrow keys to step backward or forward one frame at a time.

Video -> Snapshot Source Frame will let you save the current frame as BMP, PNG, or TGA.

Video -> Copy Source Frame to Clipboard will save the current frame to the clipboard from where you can paste it into any image editing program.

[buddycat]

Okay, here's the original -- and it looks like I'm just being picky - the shot just makes the actor skinny...

[Pinstripes23]

Did you even try the modified script I posted?

AviSource("C:\Path\To\Movie.avi")
Crop(8,22,-12,-24)
LanczosResize(720,480)
#dont addborders
ConvertToRGB24()

And convert to 16:9 output. None of your screenshots show the script above. This show is shot in 1.78:1 = 16:9 as stated above. Whoever captured and encoded the original Divx file resized it to 720x480 which is a funny resolution to begin with. Either the picture would be stretched vertically or borders would have been added top n bottom in order to keep the original AR of the picture. And they actually did both - stretch it and added borders all the way round. That's why the original looks way off. To keep the WS look they should have encoded with resolution 624x352, or something similar like 720x404 NOT 720x480.

[jagabo]

Okay, here's the original -- and it looks like I'm just being picky - the shot just makes the actor skinny...

Of course it makes the actor tall and skinny it's a 16:9 anamorphic image. That means it's a 16:9 picture squished to fit in a 720x480 frame. If you encode it as I instructed your DVD player will perform the letterboxing for a 4:3 display or display wide screen on a wide screen display -- just like any wide screen DVD.

Pinstripes23 is right, whoever did the encoding did squash the image a bit vertically and added black bars (maybe he thought it was wider than 16:9?). His AVISynth script should work perfectly. You then open that in TMPGEnc, set the source aspect ratio to 16:9, the output aspect ratio to 16:9 and encode. Burn the MPEG2 file as 16:9 on the DVD and it will play perfectly.

Here's the original 16:9 anamorphic PAL frame (all images half size):


How it should look as 16:9 anamorphic NTSC:
(Pinstripes23's AVISynth script will make it look like this.)
(Opening in TMPGEc directly will leave the small black bars.)


How it will display on a 4:3 TV from DVD:


And how it will display on a 16:9 TV from DVD:

[buddycat]

Did you even try the modified script I posted?

Yes. I did. Here's the script.

AVISource("C:\My Documents\My Videos\Doctor Who\Doctor_Who_2006_02x01_New_Earth_NTSCavi.avi")
Crop(8,22,-12,-24)
LanczosResize(720,372)
AddBorders(0,54,0,54)
#Trim(0,76814).FadeOut(150)
ConvertToRGB24() # For TMPGEnc or VFAPI

Remember, you asked for my original avi pic. I was commenting on the slight percieved distortion on the finished results. If you compare my earlier pic on 5/14 on the first page, you'll see it looks pretty much like the examples you posted.

The one difference I notice from one of the previous pics I posted back on 5/14 was is that it added borders. I hadn't thought I'd done that. So, I'll re-run the test clip without the borders and report back tomorrow. One question - once the mpeg is encoded for 16:9, is there something further I have to do in Nero? Stuff I've done previously has seemed to show it already in the proper aspect when encoded 16:9 by Tmpgenc.

[buddycat]

Okay, I did it faster than I thought. Here's the resulting capture. Looks like your examples, near as I can tell. Also, I found the option in Nero. It's set for automatic. Can I trust it, or should I go ahead and choose the actual 16:9 option? Does it matter, do you suppose?

[guns1inger]

If you are going to encode it as 16:9, you need to resize it to 480 without borders, not 372 with borders. If the image above is the output from the script, then it is a 4:3 letterbox, not a 16:9 image.

[jagabo]

Okay, I did it faster than I thought. Here's the resulting capture. Looks like your examples, near as I can tell.

The picture has the correct aspect ratio as posted, a 16:9 (640:360) picture in a 640x480 frame. (Except for the minor quibble about whether the small black borders at the left and right edges should have been cut out. I would have left them in. They were in the original PAL frame and will fall in the overscan region of the TV anyway.)

But since we don't know how you generated the screen cap, or which AVISynth script you used, we can't tell if it's a 16:9 anamorphic encode that's been converted to 4:3 for display, or if it's a 4:3 encode.

[Pinstripes23]

Yes. I did. Here's the script.

AVISource("C:\My Documents\My Videos\Doctor Who\Doctor_Who_2006_02x01_New_Earth_NTSCavi.avi")
Crop(8,22,-12,-24)
LanczosResize(720,372)
AddBorders(0,54,0,54)
#Trim(0,76814).FadeOut(150)
ConvertToRGB24() # For TMPGEnc or VFAPI

No you didn't.
OK let's try this again:

AVISource("C:\My Documents\My Videos\Doctor Who\Doctor_Who_2006_02x01_New_Earth_NTSCavi.avi")
Crop(8,22,-12,-24)
LanczosResize(720,480)
#Trim(0,76814).FadeOut(150)
ConvertToRGB24() # For TMPGEnc or VFAPI

Notice I changed the vertical res to 480. And I got rid of the addborders command. This is the script that you use to convert to 16:9. On a WS TV display this will fill up the whole picture. On a 4:3 TV display the borders will automatically be added in order to create a letterbox WS. I haven't used TMPGenc in awhile but follow jagabo's instructions when importing the script and setting the output.

[Pinstripes23]

Ok to give a visualization on what the avisynth script is doing:


the original divx file 720x480
AVISource("C:\My Documents\My Videos\Doctor Who\Doctor_Who_2006_02x01_New_Earth_NTSCavi.avi")




Crop(8,22,-12,-24) the image is now 700x434


LanczosResize(720,480) Resizing cropped image back to 720x480



Encode to 16:9

On a WS TV, the picture will look like this:


On a 4:3 TV, the picture will look like this - with borders automatically added to create WS letterbox:



So I hope this will give you a better understanding of what the script and your encoder is doing when converting to 16:9

[buddycat]

Okay. I could have sworn somebody had the 372 in the script. But I also said that I'd changed the script from the one that I posted last, too. I just didn't post the new one, that's all. But I'll give it a shot. Sounds like we've got it figured out. Thanks again, guys!

[buddycat]

Hello again!

I seem to be having a problem with a particular AVI file. I'm wondering if it got uploaded in 4:3 aspect, rather than 16:9 like all the others.

Here's the script I've used, per previous posts:

AVISource("C:\My Documents\My Videos\Doctor Who\Doctor Who 2006 02x08 The Impossible Planet NTSC 720x480 HQ WS DivX AC3.avi")
Crop(8,22,-12,-24)
LanczosResize(720,480)
#Trim(0,81469).FadeOut(150)
ConvertToRGB24() # For TMPGEnc or VFAPI

But what happens when I use this script is this:

[buddycat]

Here's what I've gotten previously, using the same script:

[buddycat]

The above were rendered when I had the source and the output as 16:9. But when I tried 4:3, here's what I got:

[buddycat]

So, am I stuck with this particular ep in this aspect, or is there a way to fix it? I'm not sure why this one was uploaded differently. As far as I know, it's from the same source.

[jagabo]

I've seen them all in 16:9. Is that one 29.97 fps? Maybe it's from the USA SciFi channel broadcast?

[buddycat]

No, and as a matter of fact, now that I've had a look at the files where I got it (at www.mininova.org), I notice that this particular one does not say that it was "letterboxed". That's rather disappointing, and I wonder why it was done this way. I'll probably go ahead and take it anyway, unless someone has an idea of how to re-format it.

[buddycat]

Woops. Actually, I meant, "yes" about it being 29.97.

[jagabo]

Since it's 29.97 it's almost certainly recorded off the SciFi channel. There's no way you can restore the edges of the picture that have been cut off. You should just look for one of the UK DVB wide screen conversions.

[buddycat]

Nope, these are second season.