Convert 2:35 and 2:40 Movies to 1:78

[manicjonah]

I have a miscellaneous collection of movies (mkv, m2ts, mostly) that were ripped from Blu Ray with 2:35 or 2:40 aspect ratios. I have a standard 16x9 TV that believes that 1920x1080 is 1080P (not 1920x800) and 1280x720 is 720P (not 1280x536,600,680,etc).

I am curious to know how I can go about getting rid of the black bars at the top and bottom of these movies. My media player of choice is Windows Media Center. There are Zoom settings in WMC that allow movies like these to fill the screen but they make the video look stretched. I have tinkered with the Resize and Aspect Ratio settings in FFDShow and find that the videos look similarly stretched.

What can I do with these videos so they fill the screen and don't look stretched?

I have a program called DVD Fab that I was going to use to change the aspect ratio of the videos but it only offers me the choice of other aspect ratios that are similarly strange.

Today I downloaded MediaCoder but because I don't understand a lot of the video terminology I find it very intimidating. I can probably find my way through re-encoding a video but I would like to preserve their current quality. I understand audio encoding so I am trying to relate video to it. If I have a 192kbps audio file that I re-encode as a 320kbps audio file I just have a bigger (file size) version of the same lousy audio file I had in the first place. I assume that applies for video as well.

So, what can I use to transcode or merely resize the aspect ratio of a video?

Thanks for the help,

MJ

[Baldrick]

Have you played around with ffdshow enough? You can use it to CROP the video to get correct size so you will get full screen.


Reconversion will take a LOT of time and you will lose quality.

[bananae]

I'm not trying to tell you what to do, but are you sure that you really want to lose those black bars? Maybe this image helps explaining it:
http://img6.imagebanana.com/img/lhn68cvn/bla.jpg (The black frame is supposed to be frame of your TV.)
If that's really what you're looking for, the crop option in ffdshow is in fact probably the best way to do so.

[jman98]

You do understand that when you fill the screen you will lose some of the image, right?

[davexnet]

Have you explored everything in regards to altering the image at playback time? This might include
controls within the media player, the decoder (FFDshow mentioned earlier) or even the TV (zoom control).

If not, you'll probably have to re-encode the movie. As an example, a typical low-res file 640*272 aspect ration 2.35.
To make it into a 16/9 aspect ratio, you'll need to crop a little off each side so that the file ends up being 496/272 or similar.
Note that you have completely lost 72 pixels on each side.

Another option is to trim a little less from the sides and stretch the vertical a little. This will be tending towards things
looking tall and thin, but if you do it a small amount, you may be able to live with it.

It's th laws of physics, you either lose material, or distort the picture, or a compromise with a little of both.

[manono]

You do understand that when you fill the screen you will lose some of the image, right?

I'm not sure he does. He already stretches it to fill the screen, gets the whole image but notices the aspect ratio is all wrong. He seems to think there's another way to do it and both keep the entire image as well as keep the proper aspect ratio. bananae has a real good set of pictures that should set him straight. And maybe he'll then come to the right conclusion and learn to ignore the black bars. After all, his 1920x800 MKV was once a 1920x1080 bluray with those same black bars he now sees on his TV set before he begins trying to ruin the image by either stretching it or cropping it.

Cropping and reencoding is a complete waste of time and the result will never be as good as what you started with.

[manicjonah]

The image that was posted is a great help. I really do hate the black bars. The bottom image is what I'm stuck with when I tinker with the Resize and Aspect Ratio settings in FFDShow. The second image is what I don't like and the third image is most appealing. How much am I really losing?

Seems like this image is provided by a software developer to demonstrate how their software can squeeze the full picture (2:35) into a 16:9 display. Is that the case?

When I download a 1080P or 720P movie that fills my TV screen properly am I missing parts of the screen or is it somehow mastered to provide me the full screen shot on a 16:9 display?

The crop function in FFDShow doesn't work on my test video. The black bars don't seem to be part of the picture, only the movie itself can be cropped.

The zoom function works OK but with one shortcoming, it can't be set to run conditionally. I don't want the zoom on all the time, only when the video's aspect ratio isn't a good fit for my TV screen. I also don't want to minimize the WMC window to get to the FFDShow icon so I can turn the zoom on (check the Crop box).

Everyone in the US with an HDTV has a 16:9 TV, right? Are they all watching HD content with bars on top and bottom?

Thanks for the replies so far. I really gotta think here and appreciate your insight.

MJ

[jagabo]

Buy curtains. Adjust them like a movie theater does. Black bars gone.

Everyone in the US with an HDTV has a 16:9 TV, right?

There is at least one HDTV with a 2.33:1 screen.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/15/philips-introduces-ultra-widescreen-cinema-21-9-lcd-tv/
And don't forget, if you get that HDTV you'll have pillarbox bars on the sides when you watch narrower format sources.

Are they all watching HD content with bars on top and bottom?

All who watch 2.35:1 movies on 16:9 HDTVs and like to see the whole picture without distortion do.

[bananae]

The image that was posted is a great help. I really do hate the black bars. The bottom image is what I'm stuck with when I tinker with the Resize and Aspect Ratio settings in FFDShow. The second image is what I don't like and the third image is most appealing. How much am I really losing?

With the version on the third image, you're losing about 27% of the whole image (If, like in this example, the movie aspect ratio is 2.4). So that's the question you've gotta ask yourself: What's worse? Black bars (no loss of information, but might be annoying), cutting off the edges (and losing lots of information), or a completely wrong aspect ratio (everything appears way too narrow)?

Seems like this image is provided by a software developer to demonstrate how their software can squeeze the full picture (2:35) into a 16:9 display. Is that the case?

3 minutes MS Paint, actually, and I've never written any software in my life, but thanks anyway.

When I download a 1080P or 720P movie that fills my TV screen properly am I missing parts of the screen or is it somehow mastered to provide me the full screen shot on a 16:9 display?

In this case, the file you're watching actually has an aspect ratio of 1.78 (16:9). Some older movies and most current TV series are like that, but almost every movie from the last ~30 years is wider (like 2.35 or even 2.4).

The crop function in FFDShow doesn't work on my test video. The black bars don't seem to be part of the picture, only the movie itself can be cropped.

You're making a mistake here. The black bars are added by your media player when watching in fullscreen. If you wanted to crop anything, that would have to be the sides.

Everyone in the US with an HDTV has a 16:9 TV, right? Are they all watching HD content with bars on top and bottom?

Most TVs today are 16:9. Philips came up with the idea of 21:9 (2.33) TVs some time ago (looks like this http://www.unbeatable.co.uk/articles/image/Philips%20Cinema%2021-9%20with%20IFA%20mode...0-%20lores.jpg ), but they're only good for movies and nothing else.
Yeah, most people are watching with those black bars.

[jagabo]

I'm not sure why 16:9 was chosen for HDTV. I guess because it's about halfway between 1.33:1 and 2.35:1 -- a compromise between TV and widescreen movie aspect ratios. Also, at the time the spec was developed most TVs were CRT based. It would have been pretty hard to make a 2:35:1 CRT with a reasonable depth.

[manicjonah]

I've downloaded a couple of movies that came over as 1280x720 or 1920x1080 - did the person who uploaded them change the default resolution then? So in these movies that are easy on the eyes I'm actually missing footage from the sides?

One more question, why isn't it possible to have a 2.35 movie that is 1920x1080 or 1280x720? 1920x800 is damn close to 1920x1080 - there's a calculation I'm sure, right?

[jagabo]

I've downloaded a couple of movies that came over as 1280x720 or 1920x1080 - did the person who uploaded them change the default resolution then? So in these movies that are easy on the eyes I'm actually missing footage from the sides?

If they were shot 2.35:1, yes. Some movies are shot 1.85:1. Modern TV movies (SyFy, for example) may be shot 1.78:1.

One more question, why isn't it possible to have a 2.35 movie that is 1920x1080 or 1280x720? 1920x800 is damn close to 1920x1080 - there's a calculation I'm sure, right?

How do you fit a square peg in a round hole? Is there a calculation that will let you keep all of the peg without distortion and still fill the hole?

[bananae]

I've downloaded a couple of movies that came over as 1280x720 or 1920x1080 - did the person who uploaded them change the default resolution then? So in these movies that are easy on the eyes I'm actually missing footage from the sides?

One more question, why isn't it possible to have a 2.35 movie that is 1920x1080 or 1280x720? 1920x800 is damn close to 1920x1080 - there's a calculation I'm sure, right?

There's probably a misconception here. 1080p doesn't mean the vertical resolution has to be 1080 pixel and the horizontal resolution 1920. All it means is that either one has to be, while the other doesn't exceed the limit. So 1920x1080 (16:9) is 1080p, but 1440x1080 (4:3) or 1920x800 (~21:9 or 2.4:1) both count as 1080p, too. So the rest of the space, be that at the sides or at top&bottom, is filled with black (bars), until it fills 1920x1080.

Same goes for 720p. So when a movie is tagged "720p", that doesn't mean it must be 1280x720. It might as well be 1280x540, or something like that.

[edDV]

One more question, why isn't it possible to have a 2.35 movie that is 1920x1080 or 1280x720? 1920x800 is damn close to 1920x1080 - there's a calculation I'm sure, right?

Sure you can. And it will look like this. Vertically stretched.

[jagabo]

Blu-ray uses a fixed 1920x1080 frame size. Wider movies are usually letterboxed in that frame. When people rip those Blu-ray discs the crop away the letterboxing leaving 1920x800 or whatever.

[intracube]

I've downloaded a couple of movies that came over as 1280x720 or 1920x1080 - did the person who uploaded them change the default resolution then? So in these movies that are easy on the eyes I'm actually missing footage from the sides?

If they were shot 2.35:1, yes.

Not always. For films shot with anamorphic lenses @2.35:1 or 2.39:1, that's the case. But for Super35 films (a lot of films are shot in this format), the original image often extends vertically beyond the 2.39:1 frame.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_35

With Super35, a production may decide on 2.39:1 as the primary aspect ratio, and frame the shots accordingly, but the image recorded to film is often taller - 16:9 or 4:3 common width (depending on whether the film was shot 3 or 4perf).

'4perf' means each frame is pulled through the camera 4 perforations at a time (like the top example on the Wikipedia link). '3perf' means a frame is pulled through 3 perforations at a time - 3perf reduces the amount of film stock needed but also reduces the height of the image.

There are additional complications - although a film might have been shot 4perf Super35 with 2.39:1 as the intended aspect ratio, only a 16:9 area of the film might make it through the post production stage (scanning/digital intermediate/colour correction/VFX etc). Special effects shots are not always rendered to the full area of the S35 frame. So it's not easy to know exactly what aspect ratio the 'master' is.

manicjonah; it's quite possible that the 16:9 versions of the films you're looking at have extra height compared to the cinema/DVD releases rather than the sides being cropped. Sometimes it's a bit of both - slight cropping at the sides, slight expansion at the top and bottom.

There's quite a number of ways that films can be formatted for TV.

TV networks sometimes show 16:9 (or even 4:3) versions of 2:39:1 films that make use of the extra area of the S35 frame.

Take a look at the images towards the bottom of this page:
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDCompare7/gladiator.htm
particularly the third image in each comparison (labelled as HDTV).

I have to admit, I'm not a purist. If the frame can be expanded vertically to fit a 16:9 (or 4:3 TV) and give the film more impact, then I'd often go for that option. For example, I wonder if it's possible for a Bluray disk to have a 16:9 full height version of a film, with the option of overlaying black bars at the top and bottom for people that want to see it as it was in the cinema. This wouldn't be possible for anamorphic (eg Panavision) movies, though.

[intracube]

A couple of examples:
left - intended theatrical 2.39:1 version, right - most/all of the S35 frame (taken from a trailer on the R2 Gladiator DVD):

[jagabo]

Not always. For films shot with anamorphic lenses @2.35:1 or 2.39:1, that's the case. But for Super35 films (a lot of films are shot in this format), the original image often extends vertically beyond the 2.39:1 frame.

I almost mentioned that but decided it was such a small minority of films it wasn't worth writing up. It's also covered here: http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/anamorphic/aspectratios/widescreenorama2.html

In any case, you can't fit a 2:35:1 picture in a 1.78:1 frame without letterboxing, distorting, cropping, or some combination thereof. Period. End of story.

[intracube]

But for Super35 films (a lot of films are shot in this format), the original image often extends vertically beyond the 2.39:1 frame.

I almost mentioned that but decided it was such a small minority of films it wasn't worth writing up.

I have to disagree. I can't point to exact figures, but I'd estimate there are at least equal if not more soft matted 1.85:1 and S35 films than anamorphic.

It's also covered here: http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/anamorphic/aspectratios/widescreenorama2.html

Sites like this catalogue worst case examples of fullscreen versions of films and don't make it clear that their examples aren't representative of typical film to TV transfers.

In any case, you can't fit a 2:35:1 picture in a 1.78:1 frame without letterboxing, distorting, cropping, or some combination thereof. Period. End of story.

If you only have access to a 2:39:1 version of a film, then true. But as I said, there's often 16:9 full height versions of 2:39:1 films that have additional picture at the top/bottom of the frame, and don't resort to heavy cropping.

[intracube]

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/anamorphic/aspectratios/widescreenorama2.html
Notice how they've used a common frame height for the S35 examples (Air Force One), which makes the 2.39:1 image significantly larger (by area) and visually more impressive.

Also, the October Sky examples look suspect. The 4:3 version shows quite a bit more on the left of the frame compared to the 2.39:1 version. IMDB says the film was shot in Panavision, so I'm scratching my head as to why the 4:3 example has more along the side...

[neomaine]

One more question, why isn't it possible to have a 2.35 movie that is 1920x1080 or 1280x720? 1920x800 is damn close to 1920x1080 - there's a calculation I'm sure, right?

How do you fit a square peg in a round hole? Is there a calculation that will let you keep all of the peg without distortion and still fill the hole?

I just pissed myself laughing. So true and so funny... Plenty of family and friends that think the same way. I explained it once, got a bunch of blank stares at best and a bunch who thought I was lying to them.

I've just accepted that for some people the TV is more important than the movie. They paid x-hundreds of dollars for the TV and they downloaded a pirated movie for free. Damn it, make the movie fit... So sad.