Force AutoGK to 16:9 after adding pixels to autocrop?

[nerdgeek]

I have a DVD & can successfully convert it to .avi with AutoGK without using the advanced settings - autocrop detects that it is a 16:9 picture in a 4:3 original & makes a perfect aspect ratio output of excellent quality.

Problem then is that there are small and ittitating almost-black bars top & bottom due to the wobbling source video, so I manually added pixels to autocrop in advanced options.

This produces a perfect result, no black bars, EXCEPT that the aspect ratio is now incorrect & playing in say. Zoomplayer using original or derived aspect gives a slightly distorted aspect. Circles are not quite circles.

Forcing Zoomplayer to 16:9 makes it play correctly - circles are now circles.

There seems to be no way to force the AuyoGK output aspect ratio to 16:9 so that it plays correctly in players that can only use the aspect ration in the .avi

Using AutoGK advanced options - force input to 16:9 - makes it worse as the input is 4:3. Very distorted.

Is there any way to do this with AutoGK or must I first extract the elementary streams with other tools and then use VirtualDub which CAN do this (by selecting output .avi width & height)? If so what tools?

Regards,
Nico M

[DRP]

The only way to do this is to enable the hidden switch for force aspect ratio as you've done to any value you want. This will create a simple text file with no extension in the working directory of AutoGK. Before starting the job, edit this text file manually wiping out the 4:3 or 16:9 text with whatever correct aspect ratio you want instead like 352:240 or 11:5 or whatever you work out is correct for what you need.

[nerdgeek]

The only way to do this is to enable the hidden switch for force aspect ratio as you've done to any value you want. This will create a simple text file with no extension in the working directory of AutoGK. Before starting the job, edit this text file manually wiping out the 4:3 or 16:9 text with whatever correct aspect ratio you want instead like 352:240 or 11:5 or whatever you work out is correct for what you need.

Good. Thanks. But how on earth do I calculate that? I'll try to work it out.

I also tried to convert the DVD to .mpg using VOB2MPG, this produced a file that played OK but VirtualDub complained & couldn't use it. I wonder if there's any other utility that will convert a set of .vob to .mpg, or one that'll fix a .mpg, think I'll try VideoReDo which has made .mpg readable in the past for me.

AutoGK is a nice all-in-one but VirtualDub gives me fine control over both DivX PRO & LameMP3 plus resizing filters ....

The problem with calculating AutoGK imput AR manually is that it takes a 4 hour run to see if I've really got it right! But I'll bear that if my .mpg exporting fails again.

Thanks,
Nico M

[DRP]

Lets say you have an NTSC DVD with a picture size of 720x456 (12 pixels of black bar cut off top and bottom) and it has a 16:9 AR display flag. The true aspect ratio is then 853:456. The 853 is arrived at by multiplying 16:9 with 480 (the full vertical resolution of the frame ignoring any black bars). You therefore change the aspect ratio flag for AutoGK to 853:456 and you force a manual crop of the input IFO with 12 pixels top and bottom. That should work and AutoGK will give you an AVI ratio as close as it can get within the confines of horizontal and vertical sizes that are divisible by 16.

[DRP]

I wonder if there's any other utility that will convert a set of .vob to .mpg, or one that'll fix a .mpg, think I'll try VideoReDo which has made .mpg readable in the past for me.

There is and you already have it. It's called DGIndex and it's part of the AutoGK suite of programs. DGIndex is a frameserver for VOB files. You can load multiple split VOBs into it exactly as you ripped them off the DVD or you can simply feed it one solid complete VOB if you prefer. Save out the project file and feed it into your favourite encoder like TMPGEnc and convert it to whatever you want just as you currently do with VirtualDub for AVI sources.

[nerdgeek]

I wonder if there's any other utility that will convert a set of .vob to .mpg, or one that'll fix a .mpg, think I'll try VideoReDo which has made .mpg readable in the past for me.

There is and you already have it. It's called DGIndex and it's part of the AutoGK suite of programs. DGIndex is a frameserver for VOB files. You can load multiple split VOBs into it exactly as you ripped them off the DVD or you can simply feed it one solid complete VOB if you prefer. Save out the project file and feed it into your favourite encoder like TMPGEnc and convert it to whatever you want just as you currently do with VirtualDub for AVI sources.

I was using autocrop PLUS additional 10px added manual crop, so your number was incorrect as I didn't explain properly.

I've now found that with forced manual crop I have to take away 50px top AND bottom.

And a forced aspect ration of 640:453 gets me close but so far I have only been able to end up with 640:352 OR 640:368 and nothing in-between (needs 640:360 of course for 16:9).

Baffled & bamboozled & trying one last run before calling it a long night - many thanks for your help so far.

Nico M

[DRP]

You won't ever be able to force AutoGK to give you a 640x360 ratio because 360 is not divisible by 16 to an integer. That's why it's giving you one or the other either side. 22 x 16 = 352 or 23 x 16 = 368. You can't have 360. AVI files by AutoGK are made up of 16x16 pixel image blocks and you can't change that as far as I know. If you want something outside of that limitation then you need to do it yourself without the help of AutoGK.

One way around it would be to limit AutoGK to a maximum horizontal resolution of 512 pixels via the advanced options button. At 512 width, you get a 288 vertical resolution for a perfect 16:9 aspect ratio display. Both 512 & 288 are divisible to an integer by 16, so AutoGK will happily choose 288 if you limit it to using 512 for horizontal and feed it a forced aspect ratio of 16:9

[manono]

Or choose a 624 width. You should wind up with 624x352.

And there's at least a fair chance you won't have to crop manually if you just raise the cropping threshold in the Hidden Options, so that it crops more:

- Sometimes auto crop used with default parameters by AutoGK cannot totally remove black bars or removes too much of a movie material. In this case "Tune auto crop parameters" is very handy. Threshold defines how sensitive auto crop will be: the higher the value the more cropping will be done.

http://www.autogk.me.uk/modules.php?name=TutorialEN#6

[nerdgeek]

Or choose a 624 width. You should wind up with 624x352.

And there's at least a fair chance you won't have to crop manually if you just raise the cropping threshold in the Hidden Options, so that it crops more:

- Sometimes auto crop used with default parameters by AutoGK cannot totally remove black bars or removes too much of a movie material. In this case "Tune auto crop parameters" is very handy. Threshold defines how sensitive auto crop will be: the higher the value the more cropping will be done.

http://www.autogk.me.uk/modules.php?name=TutorialEN#6

I feel so dumb, I read that in the tutorial & forgot about it - also the number of frames to average over can be changed, duh! Many thanks.

624 is better, what's the next 16x16 size above that? Still don't get the (simple) arithmetic.

I watched the DVD today on my DVD Player/TV & realised the DVD is in fact a very excellent transfer/encode of high visual quality, beautiful color & artifact-free movement, very fine. Audio is AC3 DD5.1. It has the Indian Film Board classification at the start so looks like it was made from a 35mm master with loving care. I was surprised it was so good. It's a very rare Indo-Japanese anime film telling the Ramayana epic, directed by a Japanese with mixed Japanese & Indian animators. Not sure it was ever released in Japan, the director spent 10 years on it & made over 60 visits to India. Eventually got funding from both Japanese & Indian cultural institutions & governments.

I'm thinking now that I'd really like to make an h264/DD5.1 encode to .mkv with dual 5.1 audio & subs at (maybe) 720 width.

I realize I'll have to learn a lot but it'll be the best training as I'm now well-motivated.

Any pointers to this, guides or posts, would be very much appreciated. My efforts so far to pull out the elementary streams have failed and only DGIndex (inside AutoGK) has not protested or cut frames out; but I can't see how to run DGIndex standalone. More research needed. I have used MKVMerge but not TMPGEnc.

Machines are dual-core Athlons with 2GB RAM so I shouldn't have resource problems.

Thanks to both of you for your patience.

Regards,
Nico M