video formatting/ picture size

[rocks911]

So through the help of this site and particularly Baldrick the great I am developing an ability to covert my DVD collection to 264 MKV. So I am currently working on my concert DVD collection. I loaded Tom Petty and converted it to 264 MKV and played it back. imagine my surprise when the picture was small, smaller than my screen and smaller than every other video that I've converted from DVD to MKV through Ripbot or Handbrake.

Could someone help me understand this so that I may account for this before converting? It's kinda crazy doing this and spending an hour plus recoding only to discover that the end product is not expected/usable.

[Baldrick]

Smaller? Black borders around the entire video or lower resolution/video frame size?

[redwudz]

Check the DVD (One of the VOBs) and your output MKV file with MediaInfo and see what it says about frame size. I've used RipBot and Handbrake a lot and have never ran into that problem. I use a preset for MKV with HB and leave the cropping on 'Automatic'. They all display full screen, depending on their aspect ratio. You can also choose to create logs for HB encodes. It's in 'Options'. RipBot also creates logs, so you may be able to track down the problem from them.

[manono]

Probably widescreen 4:3. Both the Soundstage and High Grass Dogs Tom Petty DVDs are widescreen 4:3. Unless all the black is cropped away it'll show on a widescreen HDTV with black on all four sides.

[rocks911]

Smaller as in black borders all around. I'm thinking you're right manono, it's not exactly typical but probably wont run into it much either. It just took me by surprise, just when I think I've got this figured out and ugly duckling pops out!