MKV file displaying wrong aspect ratio on Bluray player.

[djfonti]

Hello all. I hope you can help

I have a Sony BDP-S380 Bluray player. I am trying to play an MKV file on it that has a resolution of 1920 x 800. When I play it on the Bluray player, it doesn't have any black bars at the top and bottom, so I'm guessing it is stretching the image to fit the entire screen (which is how the image is being displayed).

Does anyone have any idea why this may be the case? I have tried to change between the two aspect ratio settings for the BD player (they are 'fixed' and 'original') but neither have an effect. Maybe I need to change something within the file itself? I am a novice with these things but having read up on the problem it could be something to do with aspect ratio signalling.....

Any hints or help would be much appreciated....

[aedipuss]

since you didn't make it i would assume it's just a bad mkv. you could try fixing it by using mkvtools to demux then remux with the correct aspect ratio or just trash it.

[guns1inger]

Do you have any other MKV files with non-standard aspect ratios that you can test with ?

If so, do they play correctly ?

[djfonti]

Thanks for the replies guys.

I have tested a couple more files and they show the black bars, they have similar aspect ratios. This file itself displays the black bars when viewed through a PC, although I would imagine this is to do with the greater level of options available in the PC software (Media Player Classic). In the past, I would cycle through the view options on my PS3, but this BD player doesn't have them.

It's not a big deal if I have to watch it as is, I just wanted to educate myself on how to fix this problem if I ever encountered it again as is it new to me.

I used MKVToolNix to remux with a 16:9 AR (this is not the correct one, I need 2.40:1 but I was just testing) and it worked, but only on the PC, it remained the same on the BD player.

Having read up on it, some people say that some players take their AR instructions from within the stream, rather than when it is housed at container level. Could this be the problem? Is it possible to make it so the AR signal is embedded within the video stream?

[cal_tony]

MMG, The gui for MKVToolNix has a header editor that indicates the AR as well as the display as AR. I've had to use this a number of times with 1440 files that should be displayed as 1920. I leave the AR alone and just reset the "display as".

If nothing else, it will at least show you if the header is right.

Tony

[djfonti]

Hi cal_tony.

I opened mkvmerge and the header editor within. The only option it has is in the video section - 'video pixel width/height' (these have values entered) and 'video display width/height', these don't have values. I put 1920x800 in the video display height/width section but nothing changed.

[poisondeathray]

It's not as simple as aspect ratio signalling - It's because your mkv is cropped. The original source is letterboxed 1920x1080. Most (if not all) Blu-ray players require full frame 1920x1080. Don't crop your mkv's next time (assuming you made it....)

The only way to "fix" it is to re-encode it. You could use uncropmkv or multiavchd for example

Or even better, use a media player like wdtv, or HTPC

[wulf109]

I have a BDP-S380 and have not encountered this problem even thought every mkv I've played is cropped(no black bars). I would check your players menu it may have an option to correct this. My LG BD630 has this problem all the time but the display menu has an option to select original or full screen which allows correction of the problem. I have encountered a few mkv's that the Sony won't display the correct AR,I have found that converting the file to mp4 by remuxing with MKVtoVOB will fix the problem.

[ÜberGeek]

Up until today, I had the same problem with my LG BD530 player. A couple of MKVs wouldn't display the correct 2:35 aspect ratio, no matter what AR setting I used either on the BD player or the TV.

I'm happy to say I fixed the issue in less than 15 minutes using MKVToolnix ("THE standard matroska creation and editing tool" as per Matroska itself) and following these simple instructions.

However, I still wonder: why would anyone encode a movie video file in anything other than its original aspect ratio?

Anyway, MKVMerge/Toolnix does work.

Thank you all for the valuable help.

U.G.

[guns1inger]

Up until today, I had the same problem with my LG BD530 player. A couple of MKVs wouldn't display the correct 2:35 aspect ratio, no matter what AR setting I used either on the BD player or the TV.

I'm happy to say I fixed the issue in less than 15 minutes using MKVToolnix ("THE standard matroska creation and editing tool" as per Matroska itself) and following these simple instructions.

However, I still wonder: why would anyone encode a movie video file in anything other than its original aspect ratio?

Anyway, MKVMerge/Toolnix does work.

Thank you all for the valuable help.

U.G.

Are you saying the source wasn't 2.35, or do you believe the movies you download should have the black bars encoded into them ?

[ÜberGeek]

Are you saying the source wasn't 2.35, or do you believe the movies you download should have the black bars encoded into them ?

I'm new at this, so I really don't know about video encoding stuff. The files I had the issue with are two movies in MKV format.

The original aspect ratio of both movies is 2:35. Before I fixed them, they would play at full 16:9 without black bars (i.e: picture looked vertically squished). I switched my BD player's AR setting from 16:9 Original to 16:9 Full -back and forth several times- and it just wouldn't work: no black bars would show. Same result with the TV settings.

After the fix, they both now show in their proper AR: 2:35 with black bars @ 16:9 Original, and full screen without black bars @ 16:9 Full, just as it is meant to be.

Since the bars dissapear @ 16:9 Full, I pressume they are not actually encoded. In fact I think they never were. I believe it was just a matter -I suppose- of setting the proper AR flag in the MKV file.

So, to answer your question: whether it is an issue of encoding the bars or setting the correct AR flag, I believe whoever is doing the encoding should make sure that the final MKV movie file will play in the proper aspect ratio, no matter the software/hardware it's going to be played on.

Cheers,

U.G.

[aedipuss]

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