Editing a DVD to get non-standard aspect

[ecortez]

I have a DVD that displays in 16:9 but the picture doesn't look right unless you stretch it out to 2:1. Everyone's too skinny. Of course this is not a standard aspect ratio and it won't let you set that explicitly on a disc. I can only do it in my media player. Is there a way, using a program like PGCEdit or VOB Blanker for example, to modify the disc for a hardware player, set properly chosen letterbox dimensions so the whole picture (video plus black bars) will be 16:9 but I effectively get the ratio I'm looking for? I don't want to re-encode video and lose quality. That's what I'm trying to get around.

[jagabo]

DVD only supports 4:3 and 16:9 display aspect ratio directly. What you might be able to do is add a sequence display extension that specifies that 16:9 DAR is from only a portion of the frame. For a 720 pixel wide frame I calculate a value of 640 pixels wide would give you a 2:1 DAR. What I don't know is if any set-top players will display that correctly. It's possible (likely?) that what you will get is the 2:1 video cropped down to 16:9.

What you will probably have to do is the same thing commercial DVDs do with video wider than 16:9, resize the source height and add letterbox bars, then encode as 16:9 and author a new DVD.

[aedipuss]

to not lose quality you'd have to have the original source material and re-encode to the proper aspect ratio the first time. nothing is shot in 2:1 so either your eyes are bad or the video is.

[hello_hello]

nothing is shot in 2:1 so either your eyes are bad or the video is.

2:1 has been the flavour of the month for a few years now. Mainly for TV shows, especially those made by streaming services such as Netflix, but for movies too.

The Aspect Ratio of 2.00 : 1 is Everywhere

Lady and the Tramp (2019)
House of Cards
Star Trek: Discovery

[ecortez]

to not lose quality you'd have to have the original source material and re-encode to the proper aspect ratio the first time. nothing is shot in 2:1 so either your eyes are bad or the video is.

The human eye is generally pretty good at determining when things don't look right. I had to experiment to find the aspect ratio where people look natural, not squashed or stretched. Perhaps the original video was cropped and if we had the whole frame this wouldn't be an issue. Since I don't work for the studio, the disc they issued is all I've got.

720x576 video is displayed (in 16:9) as 1024x576. If you could tell the player, say, to display it as 1024x512, with 32 pixel black bars on the top or bottom, that would work. Or if it's possible to specify larger dimensions use 1196x598, with 86 pixel bars on the left and right and 11 pixel bars on the top and bottom (giving you a 1024x576 frame inside a black rectangle). Don't know if a DVD player would accept those numbers though.

Are you telling me there's nothing you can edit on an existing disc to tell the player, format the output like this - as long as the end result comes out in a 16:9 or 4:3 frame? There's no way to do that other than re-encode?

[jagabo]

Are you telling me there's nothing you can edit on an existing disc to tell the player, format the output like this - as long as the end result comes out in a 16:9 or 4:3 frame? There's no way to do that other than re-encode?

I already gave you the one possible way. The DVD spec only supports two display aspect ratios: 4:3 and 16:9. If you you cobble together a disc with a sequence display extension that results in some other aspect ratio the behavior of DVD players with that disc is unpredictable.

[poisondeathray]

Here is a circle generated at 2:1 , with "regular" 16:9 , and the sequence_display_extension set to 640 with restream. Both muxed into mpeg-ps with blank audio

Width : 720 pixels
Height : 576 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9

Width : 720 pixels
Height : 576 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 2.000

Not very many software players take the sequence_display_extension into account and display it at 2:1 eg. potplayer, was the only one in my commonly used player list

But most do not - eg. mpchc, vlc , mpv, smplayer, ffplay etc...

I don't know what a hardware DVD player will do with it, probably ignore it

[netmask56]

I have a DVD that displays in 16:9 but the picture doesn't look right unless you stretch it out to 2:1. Everyone's too skinny. Of course this is not a standard aspect ratio and it won't let you set that explicitly on a disc. I can only do it in my media player. Is there a way, using a program like PGCEdit or VOB Blanker for example, to modify the disc for a hardware player, set properly chosen letterbox dimensions so the whole picture (video plus black bars) will be 16:9 but I effectively get the ratio I'm looking for? I don't want to re-encode video and lose quality. That's what I'm trying to get around.

Have you looked at a very old program IfoEdit circa 2004 You can edit the IFO files in a DVD structure without having to re-encode, assuming it's on your HDD prior to burning to disc

[jagabo]

I don't know what a hardware DVD player will do with it, probably ignore it

They all respond to the flag when the DAR is set to 4:3 and the sde is set to 540 -- to produce a 16:9 final aspect ratio. What I don't know is what will happen with non-standard usage though.

BTH, MPCBE played the SDE640 video properly.