Ripped MP4 resolution question

[Vol4Ever]

I use paid version of Wonderfox DVD Ripper Pro. Always had awesome luck with their companion HD Video Converter Factory, but this is my first go at making my own from personal DVD library. Quick question:

Most of my downloaded MP4 videos have 1280 x 720 resolution shown in file / properties / frame width & height. However, they still fill full screen when streamed to downstairs HDTV. Been trying to replicate this. DVD's I rip show same numbers in MP4 file properties but stream at that EXACT size. In other words, video shows in a small box. FYI, I'm not talking about black bars on 2 of the 4 sides. Entire image is in a box in the middle of the screen. It has to be something in the file itself as opposed to a TV stretch setting since both examples are MP4's residing on same PC. There has to be a rip setting I'm missing?

Thanks in advance.

~Vol

[ProWo]

Post a mediainfo report (text mode) from one of this dvd rips here.

[davexnet]

This sounds like the software may have created a 4x3 DVD Vs. 16x9 anamorphic. In the case of 4x3,
the top and bottom black bars are encoded as part of the picture and can be seen if disk is played on the computer.
left and right bars usually created by the tv.
For a properly created 16x9, the player still has a role to play, there should be a setting.
This is there so these disks can be played at the proper aspect ratio on a 4x3 TV

[Vol4Ever]

Post a mediainfo report (text mode) from one of this dvd rips here.

This sounds like the software may have created a 4x3 DVD Vs. 16x9 anamorphic.

I think you are both on right track. Attaching mediainfo reports both from downloaded version as well as freshly ripped (same movie) for head-to-head comparison. Dave is right mine does show 4:3. Also attaching screenshot of only settings available in DVD Ripper Pro software & the way I had it set. 2 followups:

- DVD itself shows encoded at 720x480. I thought software would do stretching or whatever to hit 1280 x 720 since that's one of the inputs in the dropdown.

- Is "anamorphic" what allows video to automatically fill screen? Maybe I need a different ripper software as that word doesn't show up in the settings anywhere.

I have DVD's of all types & ages, but my preference is to standardize mp4's to all fill HDTV screen automatically. Of course I know some stretching has to be done with loss of video quality, but I'm used to that. All the old 4:3 TV shows I watch "live" appear that way & I'd rather have full screen than bars or boxes. Hope that gobbledy gook makes sense.

[davexnet]

Anamorphic is just a word. It doesn't always show up. It was used to describe DVD's
where the picture was arranged so that the aspect ratio was correct when it was stretched
out to 16x9 ( so that it would look right on widescreen TV's. 4x3 TV's were still much more
common when DVD's first came out)

[ProWo]

Cut 30 sec from the middle of your Dvd ripped movie with Avidemux and post it here.

[Vol4Ever]

Cut 30 sec from the middle of your Dvd ripped movie with Avidemux and post it here.

Software converted clip to mkv format, but it still has same behavior of showing inside box. For sake of comparison, I went ahead & ripped roughly same 30 second stretch from downloaded file with desired "auto-stretch" when playing. Cannot for the life of me figure out what I'm missing, but thanks to you guys for pointing out freebie video tools to aid in figuring it out. Much appreciated!

[Sharc]

@Vol4Ever:
Actually both of your files are flawed:
- test.mkv because a 1.85:1 movie is mapped into a 4:3 frame, which leads to the boxed picture when viewing it on a 16:9 TV
- desired.mkv because the 1.85:1 movie is mapped to a 16:9 frame, stretching the picture vertically. Even cropping vertically into the picture.

The bitrate of both is too low, leading to ugly compression artifacts.

[davexnet]

Also it 29.97 fps, but every fifth frame is a duplicate
Perhaps encode it in Vidcoder and allow to auto crop

Although for the decimation to 24 fps, Avisynth probably better

[ProWo]

I don't know wonderfox dvd ripper pro, but it should simply copy the main DVD movie to the hard drive, without any conversion, in original quality (mpeg2, 720x480 NTSC or 720x576 PAL).

Try to make a corresponding new DVD RIP without making any changes. If the program can't do that, then rip your DVD with MakeMkv.
Here you will get your original DVD movie unchanged as mkv.

Conversion should be done only afterwards, if needed.

[ProWo]

From the Wonderfox Side:
Fastest DVD-to-Digital Conversion Speed
Only 20 minutes to rip a 150-minute DVD to MP4, AVI, MKV, MOV, WMV, Apple ProRes, etc. with 0-Quality-Loss and much less time to back up a DVD to MPG (only 5-10 minutes).

So try this backup to MPG variant.

[Vol4Ever]

You guys all helped get me where I needed to be. Where I was missing the boat is trying to rip DVD -and- change some of the ratios in 1 software step. I guess that's why Wonderfox themselves produces 2 different pieces of software (DVD Ripper Pro & HD Video Converter Pro). Playing around more with 2 steps per @ProWo above and it works much better in terms of screen fitment. Only a few more followups as someone newer to ripping their own:

- I understand what fps is, but can't figure out why there are so many settings when it doesn't appear to have any effect on output file size. Logically seems that it would, at least to me. Also weird that there's a setting for 30 fps and 29.97 fps?? What would such a miniscule difference accomplish? Any recommendations for which to use?

- Does anyone else do adjustments AFTER ripping DVD? I can get file size where I want it using only the DVD ripper software's bit rates. Lots of what I'm backing up are older DVD's in 720x480. Maybe black side bars for old 4:3 TV shows or top black bars for widescreen movie format (i.e. wider than 16:9 HDTV) don't bother anyone else like they do me. It's honestly the 4:3 sidebars that bother me more. Wide format sometimes makes viewing feels more "movie theater-ish", even with those top & bottom bars.

Sincerely appreciate everyone's (PATIENT!) help. And as you can guess, I'm pretty pumped after last night based on my user name . . . .

GO VOLS!!!!

[jagabo]

I understand what fps is, but can't figure out why there are so many settings when it doesn't appear to have any effect on output file size.

With bitrate based encoding fps has no effect on file size. When you specify a bitrate you're telling the encoder you want a file of a certain size (size = bitrate * time). It's like miles per gallon for cars. If a car gets 30 miles per gallon it's supposed to go 30 miles on one gallon of gas -- regardless of how big or small it is.

Does anyone else do adjustments AFTER ripping DVD?

Yes. First you decrypt the DVD to a VIDEO_TS folder on your hard drive. Then you filter/convert/compress with the codecs and container you want.

[Alwyn]

Maybe black side bars for old 4:3 TV shows or top black bars for widescreen movie format (i.e. wider than 16:9 HDTV) don't bother anyone else like they do me. It's honestly the 4:3 sidebars that bother me more.

The problem with viewing 4:3 videos in wide mode (eg 16:9) to get rid of the side bars is that they are distorted significantly, with heads being far too wide.

[Sharc]

Maybe black side bars for old 4:3 TV shows or top black bars for widescreen movie format (i.e. wider than 16:9 HDTV) don't bother anyone else like they do me. It's honestly the 4:3 sidebars that bother me more.

The problem with viewing 4:3 videos in wide mode (eg 16:9) to get rid of the side bars is that they are distorted significantly, with heads being far too wide.

This^.
Or zoom (resize and crop top & bottom) and loose picture content on top and bottom.

Normal (with side bars):

[Attachment 68462 - Click to enlarge]

Stretched to 16:9 (distorted):

[Attachment 68463 - Click to enlarge]

Zoomed (Resize and crop top&bottom):

[Attachment 68464 - Click to enlarge]

[manono]

Dump the CBR encoding as shown in your picture. Surely VBR is a choice. And if you have no way to return a film to its original 23.976fps in this Wonderfox, you shouldn't be using it if you have any desire at all for quality.

[Vol4Ever]

DVD Ripper has all kinds of fps settings but when letting software make all its default choices, it goes with 29.97. 23.97 is a choice . . . as is 30 and 24. Still trying to figure out what that fractional difference is accomplishing.

And I do plan to eventually change all the software default mpg files to mp4 with smaller file size but following @ProWo's advice from above (thanks!!) to at least get a handful ripped to have some files to play with.

@manono - I can change to lower fps when doing secondary conversion. Why would ~20% less frames result in better quality?

Sorry for the newbie questions.

[jagabo]

DVD Ripper has all kinds of fps settings but when letting software make all its default choices, it goes with 29.97. 23.97 is a choice . . . as is 30 and 24. Still trying to figure out what that fractional difference is accomplishing.

You want to go with the frame rate that matches the original source. Generally 23.976 fps for film sources, 59.94 or 29.97 fps for video sources.

Why would ~20% less frames result in better quality?

Because bits are allocated per time, not per frame. Say you're encoding at 4000 Kbps. That's 4,000,000 bits for each second of video. If the video is 24 fps that gives 160,000 bits per frame. If the video is 30 fps you only get 133,333 bits per frame.

[Vol4Ever]

That makes perfect sense! I've backed up a bunch of DVD's (20ish?) with software MPG defaults of 29.97 fps at really high bit rates. Sounds like I need to drop back to 23.97 when converting to lower rate / smaller file sizes. Still not sure I understand why 29.97 versus 30 or 23.97 versus 24, but I guess I'll go with 23.97 per clarification above.

[jagabo]

Film is shot at 24 fps. The usual process of converting it to analog NTSC video is to slow the film to 23.976 fps and telecine with 3:2 pulldown to NTSC video's 59.94 fields per second (packaged as 29.97 fps digital frames per second). Some Blu-ray productions now keep the video at 24 fps. And in theory one could use a modified pulldown pattern on DVD to retain the original 24 fps rather than slowing to 23.976.

[Vol4Ever]

Whoa. You flew plumb over my head with that one. LOL. But I'll take your word for it since you obviously understand this stuff to the next level! Here's the nutshell:

Software ripped DVD's at 29.97 (even though I could've manually changed to something else). What fps do I use now when converting to smaller mp4's? 29.97, 23.97, or 24? Past that, I should be good to go.

Thanks again.

[ProWo]

Leave the framerate as it is, there is no reason to change it and make life difficult for yourself. The commercial DVD's are usually of high quality and do not need any corrections and/or changes.
The only useful thing to do is to re-encode to x264 (avc) to reduce the file size.

[jagabo]

Leave the framerate as it is, there is no reason to change it and make life difficult for yourself. The commercial DVD's are usually of high quality and do not need any corrections and/or changes.

That's not always true. Many DVDs of films and TV shows are made by digitizing analog video tapes. So the video has hard pulldown before being digitized and encoded. A proper inverse telecine back to 23.976 will give better quality. And if the software deinterlaces before encoding at 29.97 fps (it appears the OP's software did that) it will be jerky (every 5th frame a duplicate). Of course, there's no guaranty the software the OP is using will perform a proper IVTC. Then there are things like field blended PAL/NTSC conversions which require special handling with AviSynth -- maybe beyond what the OP wants to deal with.

[netmask56]

I only use mkv as my file preference for my media player via NAS. no longer play discs, they are safely stored away from sticky fingers syndrome. I use MakeMKV and MKVToolnix.

[Vol4Ever]

Thanks so much fellow A/V weenies! I've cobbled lots of notes from thread as a whole and have a great idea about how I want to pursue with my archiving now.

Much appreciated.

~Vol