Pinnacle Studio 21 - Keeps pillar boxing my 16:9 source MP4 on DVD author

[Minok]

I've been struggling with this really annoying issue for the past 2 day that I expect is surely down to me not setting some invisible to my eyes setting.
Yes, Pinnacle Studio isnt the ideal solution, but I've rendered it in Davinci Resolve as a 16:9 and Davinci Resolve doesn't provide DVD/BD authoring to create a player playable solution with menus/chapters.

So in Davinci Resolve, I've rendered the 16:9 video to an MP4. Its all super. When playing that on my PC it looks fine:


[Attachment 53958 - Click to enlarge]

Now I've imported that MP4 into Pinnacle Studio, plonked it on the timeline, create the chapter marks and DVD menus, but every single time, the produced MPEG2 it generates in its [Authoring] tab is pillar boxed, even though the source material is not.

The [SOURCE] view in the Pinnacle Studio (note the grey indicating the full extent of the video frame:

[Attachment 53959 - Click to enlarge]

Now changing to the [TimeLine] sub-view instead, we get the black pillar boxing around the video:

[Attachment 53960 - Click to enlarge]

When I have it then export to a DVD structure image, that has the black pillar boxes, so the [Timeline] view seems to correlate with what I get out at the end. (I've already burned 2 DVD media pointlessly, so I want to figure this out before trying again).

When I plonk the resulting DVD that gets created by pinnacle in a player it has those black pillar boxes. A normal widescreen DVD doesn't .. I did that test just to be sure my DVD player wasn't set up wrong. When I play the resulting exported video on the PC without burning it, it also has the black pillar boxes. There is something in the authoring/production that Pinnacle is doing to force those in there.


Now the natural question that pops up of course is: are all of the settings correct for the project. I had thought of that and checked and set what I think are the correct settings to produce the 16:9 non-pillar boxed (ie widescreen) DVD.

In the [EDIT] and [AUTHOR] tabs, the timeline settings for this one long MP4 on the timeline are:
Aspect: Widescreen
Imaging: Regular (2D)
Size: NTSC Widescreen
Framerate: 30 (30p)

The MP4 source material is (per Windows 10 details):
720x480, 30 fps

The [EXPORT] tab settings in Pinnacle Studio I also double checked (don't think thats the problem as the pillar boxes show up farther upstream in the [AUTHOR] tab. But the settings are:
Format: DVD
Video : Standard - "NTSC Widescreen (16:9) 720x480 30p".

Thing is the menus Pinnacle produces in 16:9 those are just fine and correct at 16:9 on playback. It is just the MP4 video content itself that Pinnacle is pillar boxing for some reason (and squishing).



Can someone who uses Pinnacle and has produced a proper 16:9 widescreen non-pillar boxed result, provide some insight on what I've got set up wrong or what I'm likely doing wrong here?

[october262]

see this youtube video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6c1R7iJh4A

and this one - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSh4861jZ44

[Minok]

Replying to myself with some update... I may have solved my own problem (DVD file system encoding in progress).. and it may go back to the rendering in Davinci Resolve.

The clue was provided when I tried the "came free with the burner" CyberLink Power Director 14 DVD LE edition (that doesn't burn to DVD media), just to see how its UI handled the same file. When I pulled in the DVD rendered 720x480 16:9 source file, Cyberlink Power Director (unlike Pinnacle) threw up a warning dialog about an aspect ratio mismatch.
It indicated "Your pulling in a 3:2 source into your 16:9 timeline, would you like to convert to 4:3?" And yes, 720x480 is 3:2. So hmm... lets cancel all that and try something and drag in the full HD MP4 and have Pinnacle then encode that as the MPEG2.


From Davinci Resolve, I had rendered 2 MP4 files.
One, intended for BD media, is the full 1920x1080P 30fps render. (I'm now using this one for the ongoing Pinnacle encoding that is running as I type this....)
The other, intended for DVD media, was set up to render for 720x480 NTSC DV 30fps, well because thats the DVD standard, and my naive self thought the other info says its 16:9, so this is the way to go.

So pulling in that 720x480 NTSC DV rendered MP4 has Pinnacle Studio pillar boxing the MP4 Video.
Now that I've pulled in the 1920x1080P HD rendered MP4, Pinnacle Studio does not appear at this time to be pillar boxing things.. at least according to the various previews.

So if this ends up working is the lesson that 720x480 NTSC DV rendering from Davinci Resolve is only aimed at a fixed aspect ratio and not 16:9 (though why on earth Pinnacle Studio needed to squish and pillar box it is beyond me)?

And the results are in.... indeed that solved it. Taking the 1080p HD rendering and feeding it to Pinnacle Studio let Pinnacle Studio produce a 16:9 video content without pillar boxing.
Rendering a 16:9 NTSC DV 720x480 file will apparently not work with Pinnacle Studio.

So hopefully others can avoid the issue.

[davexnet]

Seems as if Pinnacle has failed to take into account the display aspect ratio of the source.
This could be because the file is simply not flagged as 16:9, or Pinnacle is ignoring it and using the pixel dimensions as the file.
You could have looked at your source file in Mediainfo to see if any A/R set.
Since it dislayed correctly when you played it, it probably did, but Pinnacle ignored it.

I would have thought that the program would have provided a way to manually override the source A/R.

What you got is exactly what you would expect if the file was encoded to 16:9 (anamorphic) mpeg-2 or DVD
with the source interpreted as 3:2.

Which version of Pinnacle Studio are you using? If there is a free trial, I may download and take a look

[DB83]

Let's go back to the begining.


From one of those dvds that does not look right, post a mediainfo report of one of the vobs. AR = 16:9 ?


Now play that dvd in a player such as vlc IN FULL SCREEN. Did those bars vanish ? I bet they did. And play the same dvd in vlc in an expanded window that fills the screen but has all the menu bars etc. visible. And I equally guess you now see the bars. Reason is due to the horizontal being reset because the vertical is not full.


If none of the above true then it is down to the source. An mp4 does not typically have an AR flag so 720*480 really is 3:2 as you discovered. If you want 16:9 then you export as 852 * 480. Even if your source correctly displayed as per the earlier remarks, the actual picture may not be ideal with some horizontal stretching.

[lordsmurf]

Pinnacle Studio is infamously terrible software.
Don't use it.

[Minok]

Pinnacle Studio Version:
21.0.1.110 (64 bit)

Here is the MediaInfo data on that MP4 exported from Resolve file (NTSC DV) for use by PS:

General
Complete name : M:\Video\VideoRender DVD.mp4
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media
Codec ID : isom (isom/iso2/avc1/mp41)
File size : 5.08 GiB
Duration : 1 h 45 min
Overall bit rate : 6 881 kb/s
Writing application : Lavf57.25.100

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : Main@L3.1
Format settings : 2 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC : No
Format settings, Reference frames : 2 frames
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 1 h 45 min
Bit rate : 6 683 kb/s
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 486 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Original display aspect ratio : 3:2
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 30.000 FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.637
Stream size : 4.94 GiB (97%)
Color range : Limited
Color primaries : BT.709
Matrix coefficients : BT.709
Codec configuration box : avcC

Audio
ID : 2
Format : AAC LC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec Low Complexity
Codec ID : mp4a-40-2
Duration : 1 h 45 min
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 192 kb/s
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel layout : L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 46.875 FPS (1024 SPF)
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 146 MiB (3%)
Default : Yes
Alternate group : 1

With respect to how it looks once burned to DVD optical disc by Pinnacle Studio with what it did, played in a commercial DVD player to a flat panel 16:9 TV that displays DVDs just fine for years, so I know that the player/tv is set up correctly:
It displays it with the black pillars on the sides.


As I'd mentioned, I got around the issue by feeding Pinnacle Studio the full HD MP4 instead, and it produced the desired results (proper DVD with anamorphic 16:9 displayed on the DVD player/TV). Having to deal with the quirks of PS 21 not doing what one expected was a bit of a pain and wasted a few DVD DL blanks.


That said, I can agree that Pinnacle Studio is very flakey. The "Format: Blu-ray Disc" (as opposed to the Format: DVD option discussed above), produces a BDMV and CERTIFICATE directory image, that when burned to a BD DL media, results in an optical disc that hangs the BD players. Both the physical BD player (Oppo) and on the PC the software one (Cyberlink PowerDVD), they both hang in reading the disc and have to be hard shut down. So I'm wondering what weirdness is going on there.

That said, what is a good alternative to Pinnacle Studio to create the menus with chapters and custom background/button icons, which isn't a complex assembly of tools? I'd need this to only due the DVD and BD wrapping/assembly as needed.

Does DVD Architect Studio do a solid job at this. Spending a ton of money on this final wrapping stage doesn't make sense, which I why I was trying to get it done with the tools I already have.

[aedipuss]

usually dvd production goes like this. open your video editing software, import your source files, do your editing, render out a dvd spec compliant mpeg-2 in 720x480 4:3 or 16/9 in .m2v video only format and either an ac-3 or wav audio file separately. then use a dvd authoring program. import your vid and aud, create chapter marks, create menus if you want, then have the program mux and create the folder structure for a dvd.

you could try the free demo of dvd-lab pro or get the older free version of dvd-lab. it was probably the best for the money out there.

[DB83]

That is NOT a dvd.


DVDs will usually be mpeg2 (occasionally mpeg1). Certainly NOT AVC.


And more so you appear to have 720*486. Another non-standard dvd output.


But I did not ask for that report. I asked for the report of the vob file that is on the actually created disk. And if you do not have vobs and all the files you can see on 'What is a DVD' - link at top of page - you did NOT create an actual video-dvd.

[davexnet]

From the mediainfo

Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Original display aspect ratio : 3:2

Probably Pinnacle picked up on the 3:2 instead of 16:9

As I said, Pinnacle should provide a way to confirm/change the aspect ratio of the source
in cases like this. Not modifying the file, just the interpretation of it.

I was thinking of looking at the trial, but it's such a big download, I'm not going to bother.
Perhaps you can look for the project log to confirm the suspicion

[Minok]

That is NOT a dvd.


DVDs will usually be mpeg2 (occasionally mpeg1). Certainly NOT AVC.

Yes, that is not the DVD output vob, but the input MP4 that was given to Pinnacle Studio. The question I'm trying to figure out is why Pinnacle Studio didn't use what I gave it as input (the MP4 whose info that was) and do what needed to be done to make a 16:9 MPG2 based DVD file system out of it in its output stage.

My expectation from a DVD and BD authoring application is that I give it input video tracks with audio on them, and it does the work of converting that to the correct format and structure for the output DVD or BD. Clearly Pinnacle Studio falls down on that. It did it with the 1920x1080 HD MP4 I gave it when I asked it to make the DVD, and so I'll just use that result.

Maybe the issue is I gave it an .mp4 rather than am .m2v and the bug sits in Pinnacle's .mp4 reading system, which as someone pointed out, likely did not use the "display aspect ratio" information. Or maybe its that Davinci Resolve's NTSC DV output format is the wrong one to use for render (as it created that MP4 file), and I should just use the H264 output MP4 path I used for the HD output file.

All that said, given I've now shown to myself that Pinnacle Studio 21 produces broken BD file system results (BDMV folder), which cause both the software BD player and the physical BD player in the hifi system to lock up.... does it matter which BD production system is used? Is there one that is know to work better? Do all DVD producing systems also produce solid BD solutions?

[aedipuss]

pretty much the same as dvd production. make bd compliant video and audio files and then use an authoring program. blu-disc studio lite is free and all i've ever needed.

[DB83]

So why not provide the info as requested to prove that you actually made a video-dvd with the correct AR and not some quasi format that certain programs are known to produce - Nero being one of them.


And while you are at it also provide the folder structure are it appears on the dvd. I have another theory but I need to see what you see otherwise it is simply guess-work.

[Minok]

pretty much the same as dvd production. make bd compliant video and audio files and then use an authoring program. blu-disc studio lite is free and all i've ever needed.

OK, thats a more advanced system that I'd hoped - a lot of careful manual steps to assemble things just so, which is power, but means I've got to learn Blu Disc Studio Lite first. From the fast paced heavy accented youtube video I think I've got a basic idea of what I need to do:
Render an H264 file (per the import video dialog)... but now what sort of file container is that?
The MP4 file which uses the H264 container doesn't show up. So one of the "file types" listed in the BDS (which sounds like its using that to filter on which extensions it looks for ) match with the various output formats that DaVinci Resolve can produce using the H264 codec. So this will take a bit more learning the tricks to know how to do this in BDS.

Time to dig into Theo de Klerk's guide for beginners.