FAVC Changed My Video's A/R From 16:9 to 4:3

[moviebuff2]

Hi

My original video is 16:9. After I used FAVC105 to convert it to DVD, the A/R was changed to 4:3.

How can I keep the original aspect ratio with FAVC105?

Thanks

[Baldrick]

Can't you set 16:9 under DVD Options? ANd upgrade to latest FAVC 1.06.

[moviebuff2]

FAVC105's DVD Option tab does not have any choice for aspect ratio. I think I will have to get 1.06 version.

[Mr_Odwin]

FAVC uses the aspect ratio that mediainfo reads from the file. Why are you so sure that it is 16:9?

[moviebuff2]

Hi:

My AVI file was read by DivXToDVD as 16:9 when it was converted to DVD. Then my DivXToDVD-converted DVD played in both stand-alone and DVD drives, displaying 16:9 screen with top & bottom black bars. VideoRedo read the vob files and also showed 16:9 aspect ratio.

These videos (AVI & VOB) do not have subtitles.

Now I have the subtitles and want to add them to my video. Then I saw the FAVC's subtitle function and wanted to try it out. (see my post in the subtitle thread)

After Baldrick's kind assistance , I was able to make the subtitle show in VideoLan but then the picture was changed to full screen, instead of the original widescreen/letterbox.

At first, I thought I would have to set the aspect ratio in VideoLan to 16:9 for proper displaying of my video. But I saw VideoLan's autodetect was checked. So I suspected that the video's aspect ratio was changed to 4:3 and VideoLan's autodetect picked it up as such.

So, I used VideoRedo to open this FAVC-converted DVD. Sure enough, the stream information given by VideoRedo showed 4:3 aspect ratio.

[Mr_Odwin]

What are the dimensions (height/width) of your original avi file?

[moviebuff2]

Hi:

It's 704 x 416. Here's the pic I got from VirtualDubMod:

[Mr_Odwin]

Any width to height ratio under 1.74 FAVC considers not widescreen. Yours is 1.69. To overcome this you can manually adjust the title.bat and the avisynth script that FAVC generates.
There is no easy solution.

[guns1inger]

It would be nice to have an option or an override in the GUI.

There are still people who like to encode widescreen material as letterboxed 4:3 (sad, but true), and others who would prefer to encode 1.66:1 and even 1.37 or 1.33 material as 16:9 with pillarboxing.

[moviebuff2]

Hi, I thought the frame size has nothing to do with a video's aspect ratio. For example, if the aspect ratio of a video is 16:9, it will be displayed 16:9 whether the frame size is 640 x 272 or 704 x 416 or 720 x 480 or some other "crazy" frame size. Whether or not the frame will fit a monitor screen is a different story, but whatever is displayed on the screen will remain its original aspect ratio; i.e. the faces will not be elongated and spreaded.

No?

[Mr_Odwin]

Hi, I thought the frame size has nothing to do with a video's aspect ratio. For example, if the aspect ratio of a video is 16:9, it will be displayed 16:9 whether the frame size is 640 x 272 or 704 x 416 or 720 x 480 or some other "crazy" frame size. Whether or not the frame will fit a monitor screen is a different story, but whatever is displayed on the screen will remain its original aspect ratio; i.e. the faces will not be elongated and spreaded.

No?

That can be the case - but most of the time in avi files the frame size ratio is the same as the display aspect ratio.

[guns1inger]

Hi, I thought the frame size has nothing to do with a video's aspect ratio. For example, if the aspect ratio of a video is 16:9, it will be displayed 16:9 whether the frame size is 640 x 272 or 704 x 416 or 720 x 480 or some other "crazy" frame size. Whether or not the frame will fit a monitor screen is a different story, but whatever is displayed on the screen will remain its original aspect ratio; i.e. the faces will not be elongated and spreaded.

No?

Open the file in g-spot and you will see if the aspect ratio flag has been set to make it 16:9. I doubt that it has in this case.

[moviebuff2]

I set DivXToDVD aspect ratio to automatic. If it was not 16:9, I wonder why DivXToDVD would pick it up as such.

I will see what g-spot says about this AVI.

[guns1inger]

DivxToDVD may have a lower threshold for AR. It may take 1.66 onwards as 16:9

[moviebuff2]

Hi guns1inger:

Here's what gspot said:

[guns1inger]

FAVC is set to encode 16:9 when this is little or no pillarboxing (1.74 : 1 AR). Your video is 1.69 : 1, which is below the threshold for FAVC, hence it is encoded as 4:3. Unless Mr_Odwin choses to alter the way FAC functions, you may have to use ConvertXtoDVD or DVD Flick for this file, or look at doing to avisynth work beforehand to trick FAVC.

[moviebuff2]

Hi guns1inger:

Thanks for the advice.

I used VirtualDubMod, added top/bottom black bars, added sub to the bottom black bar (much easier to read for old man like me, LOL), 10% sharpen, multi-pass 2 times, to make an AVI. After that, DivXToDVD converted my hard-code sub AVI to DVD (frame size: 720 x 480, including the black bars).

The hard-coded sub AVI is for me to keep. The 720 x 480 DVD is for my friends who do not have DivX player.

FAVC will be used to convert other formats such MKV to DVD. It's pretty slow (6 hours for 90 minutes of video).

[guns1inger]

If those specs are still current, then 6 hours is pretty good for a comp that old and slow. Remember that FAVC uses a high quality encoder, and that quality comes at a price.

[moviebuff2]

guns1inger wrote:

Unless Mr_Odwin choses to alter the way FAC functions,[...]

Oops, sorry Mr_Odwin. Sorry I missed this part. Thank you for your wonderful program. I really mean it.

Hi guns1inger:

I'm using the laptop I inherited from my brother. It has WinXP. The 6-hr conversion was done with this laptop. I agree with you that quality comes with a price. I chose the best possible quality setting. So, I'm not complaining. I just want to reserve FAVC for video files that other softwares cannot handle, for example my last MKV file could not be read or converted by DivXToDVD, AVI2DVD and VideoLan. FAVC came to the rescue.

FYI, I just used FAVC to convert an 86-minute AVI (608 x 272, aspect ratio 2.235) to DVD. FAVC just automatically recognized it as 720 x 480 resolution and showed this info in the source file information. And the time it indicated would take to finish the 1st pass was +5 hours. I will let you know how this turns out. I still have approximately 9 hours left.

[guns1inger]

You might also consider DVD Flick. It will also handle mkv files and is faster than FAVC, although the quality is arguably lower.

Also, for shorter videos try setting the quality to Normal, and the DC Precision to 8. You should get some speed improvements out of these settings.

[dzsoul]

i am having 3 avi's in one DVD with FAVC. two of them are 4:3 and one is 1.9:1 originally. when i encoded them, the one with 1.9:1 became 4:3. why is that?

or it should be exactly 1.78:1?

[guns1inger]

I haven't tried to create mixed AR discs with FAVC. If it uses a single titleset then you are restricted to a single aspect ratio.