Is this AVI PAL or NTSC?

[RedPenguin]

I have gotten an avi and it plays just fine, yet VLC shows black bars on the left and right even when not in full screen. MediaInfo is claiming it's PAL video at 352x288 but then it claims 23.976fps, which every Google Result claims it's NTSC, I could not find any reference to PAL using this. Which should I believe, the resolution or the FPS?

[16mmJunkie]

I have gotten an avi and it plays just fine, yet VLC shows black bars on the left and right even when not in full scree. MediaInfo is claiming it's PAL video at 352x288 but then it claims 23.976fps, which every Google Result claims it's NTSC, I could not find any reference to PAL using this. Which should I believe, the resolution or the FPS?

352x288 is 4:3 (PAL) black bars on RL is due to you viewing it on a widescreen I ASSuME... and I hate to do that...but with no clip to view or MediaInfo posting of the avi

[manono]

I have gotten an avi and it plays just fine, yet VLC shows black bars on the left and right even when not in full screen.

It's being played as 1:1 meaning it doesn't play fine since it's not 1.33:1, but 1.222:1. People are probably slightly tall and thin and balls/moons slightly oval shaped. So, either the guy that created it is incompetent or the PAR isn't being honored.

As I understand it, AVIs are neither PAL nor NTSC. The source was most likely a PAL VCD (or perhaps a PAL DVD), with the speed slowed to 23.976fps to get rid of the PAL speedup. It contains elements of both PAL and NTSC.

[PuzZLeR]

It doesn't really matter in the world of AVI whether it's NTSC or PAL - leave that to DvD, BD and broadcasting and the like. But for the record, it's got an NTSC fps and a PAL rez.

But as for the source, it's not so straightforward. I think the true source was a film source or properly done NTSC clip. Much depends on whether the content is commercial, home video, capture, etc.

But I can't see the source being PAL originally.

I say this because the resizing was the work of a drunk chimp, either NTSC->PAL (badly done), or PAL->PAL (stupid). So anyone who screws up on something easy like resizing isn't likely to have the ability to do something harder (for a novice at least), like competently slow down the FPS to a satisfactory level to original film if it wasn't in the source.

I see it as a half-baked attempt at NTSC/FILM/PAL/whatever->PAL.

This is one reason, among many, why I just don't care for any encoded, shrunk, ripped, etc, crap off bittorrent, etc. Most of it is so badly done. I remember this from the DivX Stage 6 days - much of that stuff was just plain wrong. It's enough to make you cringe since some fine content was so ghastly butchered.

[manono]

But I can't see the source being PAL originally.

You know that PAL VCDs are 352x288, don't you? Personally, I don't see the source as being anything but PAL originally. And I do this sort of thing with some frequency - taking PAL VCDs and slowing them to 23.976fps to get rid of the PAL speedup. Of course, this is also on the way to making them into NTSC DVDs. But slowing a PAL VCD to 23.976fps makes much more sense to me than resizing any NTSC source to 352x288.

But I also agree with you that anything could have happened with something downloaded from somewhere. There are just too many idiots out there that think the world needs to see their incompetently encoded videos.

[PuzZLeR]

Yes, you do make sense in slowing down the slightly faster 25fps of PAL, but in slowing to 23.976fps, do you leave the resolution PAL? I would think you'd go all the way and complete the transition to NTSC by also resizing as well. No?

That's the thing. Being that this here is undoubtedly an incomplete job, I don't believe this person knew what they were doing like you would.

It's more obvious to me it was instead resized (black bars, etc), and since it was done poorly, I can't see this person handling a frame rate conversion correctly either.

Yes, I knew that 352x288 is VCD PAL standard, but so did the encoder here. I just think it was an attempted conversion to PAL, but a disregard for the FPS, which was 23.976fps. That's why I can't see it as a PAL source.

Slow it down to a native 24p film source? This person? You may be right logically in a way, but I'm just not a nice enough person to give them that much credit in their skills.

[manono]

I would think you'd go all the way and complete the transition to NTSC by also resizing as well. No?

Yes, of course. I resize to 704x480 and then pad it out to 720x480 with black.

It's more obvious to me it was instead resized (black bars, etc), and since it was done poorly,

My contention is that it wasn't resized at all and the black bars were added by the player or are a part of the original source. But I could easily be wrong about that. A sample would be nice.