Convert avi to 16:9 widescreen

[sknoxxx]

I have 40 or 50 avi files that i want to convert to a widescreen tv.

Up to a week ago i had a 8 yr old 26" sony tv, it finally died. so now i have a HDTV widescreen
tv i have done a lot of searching on this so i think im on information overload + (having a slight learning disability) don't help.

I will try to keep it brief,

Most of the avi files have sizes of

656*352
640*352
624*352
640*368

i want to now convert them to widescreen
With my old tv which is 3:4 it was preety routine i have all kinds of dvd conversion tools so i have done so many i could do it in my sleep
But now those old ones look very blocky mpeg2 noise?
Can somebody tell me how to convert avi files to 16:9 widescreen and is it true that the higher bit rate will also improve the quality Right now i convert them to mpeg-4 h.264
The 4 sizes above are the most typical ones i have

I know it cant be too hard i just need a formula? so i know what needs to be done, again i have a lot of various converting software

i do know that for widescreen i think somebody said that on a non widescreen the pixels are square and so that they need to be more of a rectagular shape as well as the width and hight will be different as well as a higher bit rate

I concider myself preety computer savy, i just need a boost to get started
i just need a place to start
Im using a Mac Pro 2.66 MHz OS 1.5.8

Thanks
sknoxx

[jagabo]

You won't increase the quality of a bad video by reencoding with a high bitrate. The best you'll do is keep from decreasing the quality even more.

You might be able to fix some things. Like the brightness, contrast, and colors. You can use deblocking filters to remove macroblocks -- leaving a blurry smeary appearance. But another round of compression will add more artifacts. Unless the problems are severe the fixes won't be worth it.

All your frame sizes are already close to 16:9 which probably means the videos are already close to 16:9. Why bother getting them exactly 16:9?

16/9 = 1.78
656/352 = 1.86
640/352 = 1.81
624/352 = 1.77
640/368 = 1.74

Is it really necessary to fill every millimeter of your HDTV screen?

[sknoxxx]

You won't increase the quality of a bad video by reencoding with a high bitrate. The best you'll do is keep from decreasing the quality even more.

You might be able to fix some things. Like the brightness, contrast, and colors. You can use deblocking filters to remove macroblocks -- leaving a blurry smeary appearance. But another round of compression will add more artifacts. Unless the problems are severe the fixes won't be worth it.

All your frame sizes are already close to 16:9 which probably means the videos are already close to 16:9. Why bother getting them exactly 16:9?

16/9 = 1.78
656/352 = 1.86
640/352 = 1.81
624/352 = 1.77
640/368 = 1.74

Is it really necessary to fill every millimeter of your HDTV screen?

the avi files are very high quality, but only about half of the screen is used, most of them are TV quality no problems with any of them.
one of them is an episode of Dexter and the avi file is broadcast quality, and im a sound engineer and get to take my work home!

sknoxx

[manono]

the avi files are very high quality, but only about half of the screen is used, most of them are TV quality no problems with any of them.

For most people playing AVIs of those resolutions through a DVD/MPEG-4 player to an HDTV, they'll fill all or nearly all of the screen. Either something's wrong with your player or it (and/or the TV set) is not set up correctly. Did you set up the player to output to a 16:9 display?

[jagabo]

Yes, in all likelihood your player is set to output 4:3.