Best Conversion Settings for a Pal VHS Tape With an Aspect Ratio of 14:9

[TazDave]

Hi, I purchased a PAL Gardening VHS tape which I wish to put on DVD but it has an unusual aspect ratio of 14:9,

Normally I would just convert to 4:3 but I am not sure if this is even possible.

Any help on the settings to use for conversion would be highly appreciated

I have attached a photo of the back cover.

Thank you

[johns0]

Hos did you come with a 14:9 ratio,did you capture any of the vhs or just going by the picture specs?

[Alwyn]

Can you give us the Mediainfo Text readout of your capture, and a screenshot of a frame?

Better still, a short piece of the video?

If you have a video editor, you should just be able to drop it in and crop if necessary; my experiments so far indicate that, in a 16:9 project, the top and bottom bars will be cropped off to give you a proper 16:9 video. Would be better to have a piece of your video though.

[Alwyn]

Hos did you come with a 14:9 ratio

Look at the box.

[TazDave]

I was going by the information on the cover.

I captured at 720 x 576 & the aspect ratio reads 5:4 with Media Info

Maybe that is correct for a 14:9 aspect ratio?

[davexnet]

Surely this should be displayed at 4:3,
That's what vhs is. The 14:9 will be within the 4:3 frame

[Alwyn]

I captured at 720 x 576 & the aspect ratio reads 5:4 with Media Info

That's a standard VHS capture then.

Please post a screenshot of a frame, or a short piece of video.

[Skiller]

14:9 was a common compromise aspect ratio used heavily in the UK throughout the 90's and well into the 2000's.
It is not an actual production format; it is always derived from either 16:9 (most of the time) or 4:3.
The idea was to minimize the size of the letterbox bars for 4:3 screens, while – at the same time – also minimizing the size of pillarbox bars on 16:9 screens.
14:9 is almost exactly the geometric mean between 4:3 and 16:9 (therefore the compromise). It basically cuts the size of the letterbox or pillarbox in half at the expense of being a format that cannot fill either screen format. Although on some 4:3 CRT TV sets with rather large overscan, 14:9 is actually displayed pretty much full screen.
For TV it was common practice to shoot "14:9 safe", which means to always keep important stuff inside of this safe area.

Anyways, on VHS it is always embedded within a standard 4:3 frame of course and thus you may treat it like standard 4:3 with small letterbox bars. You may crop the black borders or not and that's it.

[jagabo]

The box says it's letterboxed. So it's a 14:9 letterboxed in a 4:3 frame. Encode the 720x576 cap as it it's a 4:3 video. Encode as-is with 12:11 SAR, crop to 704x576 and encode as 12:11 SAR, crop to 704x496 and encode 12:11 SAR, or crop to 704x496, resize to a 14:9 frame size like 768x496, then encode square pixel.

[TazDave]

Here is a capture I did with VirtualDub

[DB83]

Using jagabo's guide, here is a quick 'n dirty conversion. The result, whilst not exactly 14:9 (it is 3:2), is as close as you are likely to get. The only additional thing I did, purely on the point of safety, was to deinterlace.


You will note the file is slightly smaller than your sample You really do not need to capture uncompressed. Lossless huffyuv etc. is sufficient and will give you less than a quarter of that original size. (And your capture may not be in sync due to the high bitrate)

[DB83]

Of course, re-reading your original post where your target is dvd you do not do any of this. Just capture as is. You can then simply import the capture in to any authoring program such as avstodvd and that will take care of the rest.

[DB83]

The only problem with dvd is that ideally you would, as described above, crop away the 16 pixels to leave 704*576. Whilst this is a valid size for dvd most authoring programs will not use it and insist on 720*576. The net result is that you have the letter-boxing top and bottom plus pillar-boxing left and right as shown in this test encode from avstodvd. (however if someone can recc a free program that accepts 704*576......)

[jagabo]

Oh, I missed that the OP's target is DVD. Yes, just burn it to DVD with the frame size as it is (or crop to 704x576), after encoding as MPEG2, interlaced, top field first, 4:3 DAR.

DB83's VOB file is wrong. It should not have that wide pillarboxing. I suspect his editor/encoder misidentified the SAR of the source.

[DB83]

One final test from me. I 'persuaded' avstodvd to accept a 704*576 source and equally 'persuaded' it to encode the dvd as 704*576. Of course watching on a ws display you still get bars but the video is now native. (The cropping can be done in avstodvd which does save one re-encode from the original)

[jagabo]

The new VOB file looks right as far as framing and aspect ratio are concerned. But the chroma channels of the two fields have been blurred together. I believe the editor/encoder didn't realize the RGB source was interlaced so it treated the interlaced chroma wrong -- blurring the chroma of the two fields together when it converted from RGB to YV12.

[Skiller]

(however if someone can recc a free program that accepts 704*576......)

For a plain DVD without any menus nothing beats Muxman; and yes it does accept 704x576.
I actually cannot think of any authoring software that would reject 704x576 if it is the only res used within that Titleset (mixing is forbidden of course). I use 704x576 for everything, except the menus (produces wrong results with some players if the MPEG is 704 but the button highlights are always inside a 720 subpic).

[DB83]

Should be so. Avstodvd has a check-box that states 'keep compliant' and that is greyed out on import of 704*576. It also expects to author full-D1 as 720*576.


But just to complete the 'set' here is an 'experimental' 16:9 version so now removes the bulk of the letter-boxing. I say 'experimental' since although I thought I was creating interlaced footage (certainly did not deinterlace in the editor I created the imported asset) it was exported as progressive.

[Alwyn]

Import into 16:9 project:

[Attachment 61561 - Click to enlarge]

Crop:

[Attachment 61562 - Click to enlarge]

Final:

[Attachment 61563 - Click to enlarge]

[TazDave]

Hi Alwyn, that looks great, I've never used the program before so could you please walk me through the steps on how you cropped it.
I understand you import the video, then you said choose 16:9, the programs gives me choices of full 1080p or hdv1 or hdv2.
Do I adjust the video when I import it?

After that I understand you choose section & Now I have absolutely no idea what to do next in the section box.

Thank you

[Alwyn]

Taz, set up your movie settings first: File > Settings > Movie... You'll find the dropdown for "SD PAL/NTSC" next to the "video settings" caption.


[Attachment 61568 - Click to enlarge]

Now drag your video onto the timeline. MEP will ask if you want to adjust the monitor: click Do Not Adjust.

Click on your video object, then click the Section effect button.

Choose "Free Proportions" from the section dropdown:


[Attachment 61572 - Click to enlarge]

Drag in the selection box orange handles to the edge of your video, top and bottom, and both sides:


[Attachment 61570 - Click to enlarge]

You're in Edit mode at the moment (as indicated by the "Preview" button, top right). Click on Preview and the video will zoom in to fit the most limiting edge (top/bottom in this case).

Last but not least: set the interlacing. Right click on the video object, then choose Object Properties, then Video and set the interlacing as follows:


[Attachment 61571 - Click to enlarge]

That's it. You can zip over to the Burn dialogue to do your DVD.



I've never forgiven Aunty for getting rid of Pete!

[Sharc]

Import into 16:9 project:

[Attachment 61561 - Click to enlarge]

Crop:

[Attachment 61562 - Click to enlarge]

Final:

[Attachment 61563 - Click to enlarge]

Too strong mpeg2 blocking artefacts IMHO. Look at the guy's face for example. The quality of the encoded picture is clearly worse than the VHS capture. I would increase the bitrate (as much as it is within DVD constraints), or use a better encoder.

Picture of field#192 for example. Well, maybe it's just at the limit of mpeg2 (for DVD) and one can't expect much better (spoiled by mpeg4 )

[Alwyn]

That looks like about frame 45:


[Attachment 61575 - Click to enlarge]

I don't see a "significantly worse" video at all. Or another one:


[Attachment 61576 - Click to enlarge]

[Sharc]

Fair enough. The blocks were just eye-catching when I stepped through the fields. Then only I noticed oh it's mpeg2 (a request for DVD compliance).
On the positive the encoding masked the dotcrawl of the capture. (I guess it was captured as composite).

[Skiller]

Was bored, so here is my attempt using AviSynth with QTGMC and ProCoder for the MPEG2 encoding and Muxman to make the VOB.


Script used

AviSource("Garden Tape Test.avi").AssumeTFF()

MergeChroma(Crop(0,2,0,0).AddBorders(0,0,0,2)) #shift chroma up by 2 lines



#my standard call for QTGMC for these sources, just ignore the mass of parameters (many are at default)

QTGMC(tr0=2,tr1=2,tr2=1, rep0=1,rep1=0,rep2=4, edimode="NNEDI3", Preset="slower", ShowSettings=false, EdiThreads=4,
\ Border=false, Blocksize=16, search=4, SearchParam=2, dct=5, ThSAD1=640, ThSAD2=256, ThSCD1=300, ThSCD2=110,
\ SourceMatch=3, matchpreset="slow", Lossless=2, Sharpness=0.1, Sbb=0,
\ NoiseProcess=2, GrainRestore=0.0, NoiseRestore=0.4, NoisePreset="slow", shownoise=false,
\ StabilizeNoise=false, NoiseTR=0, NoiseDeint="bob"  )


Crop(8,44,-8,-44) #crop to a 704 width and crop the letterboxing

#actual active image is 704x488;
#so with a PAR of 12/11 for analog video that means the aspect ratio is 1.574:1 (very close to 14:9 indeed)

#the math for resizing: 576 * 1.574 / (16/11) = 623.3 = 624


Spline16Resize(624,576)


AddBorders(40,0,40,0) #add Pillarbox borders until 704 is reached


SeparateFields().SelectEvery(4,0,3).Weave() #re-interlace


#output is 704x576i (TFF), 16:9, YUY2, for ProCoder at 6200 kbps 2-pass

Some notes:

• the audio seems to be somewhat out of sync with the video

• chroma absolutely needs to be shifted up by 2 lines, as usual with PAL VHS

• I think the levels are a tad too low; the blown-out white sky should probably be quite close to Y=235 but it's around ~227

• some mild chroma denoising would flatter this source, no need for luma denoising imo

• there is a slight color difference in Alwyn's result (look at the flowerpot and the guys red shirt). At first it looks like a Rec.709 <-> 601 mismatch but on closer inspection I'm not sure if that's the culprit because I cannot recreate it. Thoughts?

Well, maybe it's just at the limit of mpeg2 (for DVD) and one can't expect much better

Nope, it's the encoder.

[Sharc]

Well, maybe it's just at the limit of mpeg2 (for DVD) and one can't expect much better

Nope, it's the encoder.

Oh yeah, good ole' Procoder

[Alwyn]

Oh yeah, good ole' Procoder

Main Concept, actually. And it is not the standard MPEG 2 encoder for MEP. I just used it because that was what I had exports set to use at the time.

[Skiller]

Sharc was referring to my encode which I used ProCoder for.

ProCoder is hands down the best MPEG2 encoder for these kinds of sources. If it's interlaced and bitrate-hungry, ProCoder does wonders.

[Alwyn]

Rojer rojer!

[DB83]

Most will not have any experience with ProCoder unless..... (better not go there)


But what I have gleaned from this topic is that there are several ways 'to skin a cat' - some being more accurate AR-wise than others. And do tell me if I am wrong inasmuch that the original creators whilst promoting the 14:9 AR did not actually provide that visually. 'Close' is not exact.


I like skiller's avisynth approach which also clarifies the maths. My own 'experiments' done within avidemux for the source and avstodvd for the vob were a little more cumbersome in as much that they involved multiple cropping/resizing. Adding borders and then another resize to get back to 720*576. The only 'plus' (and that could be equally adapted for 704*576) is that all tools are free whereas many of those that are now promoted are not.