720 x 480 Aspect Ratio

[whatastory]

I have a question regarding 720 x 480 aspect ratio. I understand that this aspect ratio is a 3:2 aspect ratio. My question is that should 720 x 480 be left as a 3:2 aspect ratio or should it be changed to a 4:3 aspect ratio? If its left as a 3:2 aspect ratio how would it look on 16:9 displays compared to it being 4:3 aspect ratio?

[aedipuss]

lol. 720x480 is standard a 4:3 aspect ratio for most ntsc video, but they are non square pixel video. square pixel video would be 640x480. you have research to do.

[dellsam34]

Raw un-encoded 720x480 does not have an aspect ratio, Depending on how the content is recorded within it, it could be 4:3 or 16:9, An aspect ratio flag has to be assigned once it's encoded into a format to shape the individual pixels since they are not squares. With the correct flag, 4:3 contents would leave black bars on the sides of the 16:9 panel, and 16:9 contents would fill the entire screen. If you have a sample post it and we can guide you through the process.

[whatastory]

lol. 720x480 is standard a 4:3 aspect ratio for most ntsc video, but they are non square pixel video. square pixel video would be 640x480. you have research to do.

No I believe you have research to do. 720 x 480 is a 3:2 aspect ratio not 4:3. My 720 x 480 files all read 3:2 aspect ratio in Mediainfo

[whatastory]

Raw un-encoded 720x480 does not have an aspect ratio, Depending on how the content is recorded within it, it could be 4:3 or 16:9, An aspect ratio flag has to be assigned once it's encoded into a format to shape the individual pixels since they are not squares. With the correct flag, 4:3 contents would leave black bars on the sides of the 16:9 panel, and 16:9 contents would fill the entire screen. If you have a sample post it and we can guide you through the process.

Yes but generally its 3:2 aspect ratio otherwise. Should I leave it as 3:2 or encode them as 4:3? They have been automatically encoded as 3:2 I didn't assign them as 4:3

[whatastory]

Attached is a sample, it reads as 3:2

[dellsam34]

No, for a raw video 3:2 is not a display aspect ratio, Mediainfo treats the pixels as squares, 3:2 has no signification when it comes to displaying the contents on a screen, and if you display it without modification or a flag the picture will be distorted.

However your sample is not raw, it has been already encoded with added black bars on the sides, If you remove the black bars or if they were never added in the first place the display aspect ratio would have been 4:3.

If you don't have the original video to encode it the right way just live with the file the way it is, any further processing would degrade the quality.

Edit: I've attached a screenshot from the video, My explanation would be that a 640x480 video have been converted to 720x480 by adding black bars of 40 pixels each on both sides. There is absolutely no reason for doing this. Your video would have looked like the second screenshot if no black bars added.


[Attachment 77545 - Click to enlarge]

[whatastory]

No, for a raw 3:2 is not a display aspect ratio, Mediainfo treats the pixels as squares, 3:2 has no signification when it comes to displaying the contents on a screen, and if you display it without modification or a flag the picture will be distorted.

However your sample is not raw, it has been already encoded with added black bars on the sides, If you remove the black bars or if they were never added in the first place the display aspect ratio would have been 4:3.

If you don't have the original video to encode it the right way just live with the file the way it is, any further processing would degrade the quality.

I'm not usually working with raw files and had to have encoded them all in software for editing and correction. All of the 3:2 aspect ratio of 720 x 480 look fine the way they are on my display and don't really notice any distortion so I don't know what you're really talking about. The black bars cannot be removed as the actual source footage itself is lower than SD quality, its VHS resolution. I also have SD videos of 720 x 480 and they all have black bars. We don't usually live in a world of 4:3 monitors anymore although its an option. Removing bars on a video that has them would make it a 16:9 aspect ratio that is stretched to fit into a 16:9 display. Unless the monitor is a 4:3 aspect ratio monitor then removing the black bars would make it 4:3 fitting fully into that space. Yes a 3:2 would have black bars, but the black bars have nothing to do with it being 4:3.

[jagabo]

There is no 3:2 display aspect ratio (the final shape of the displayed picture) in analog video, only 4:3 and 16:9. But they are both captured with a 720x480 frame. As noted earlier, you can keep the 720x480 (or crop to 704x480 -- which is more accurate) and flag the display aspect ratio to 4:3 or 16:9 (this requires that your player respects display aspect ratio flags, not all do) or you can resize to a 4:3 (640x480) or 16:9 (854x480) frame size and encode as square pixel.

[whatastory]

[QUOTE=dellsam34;2727200]No, for a raw video 3:2 is not a display aspect ratio, Mediainfo treats the pixels as squares, 3:2 has no signification when it comes to displaying the contents on a screen, and if you display it without modification or a flag the picture will be distorted.

However your sample is not raw, it has been already encoded with added black bars on the sides, If you remove the black bars or if they were never added in the first place the display aspect ratio would have been 4:3.

If you don't have the original video to encode it the right way just live with the file the way it is, any further processing would degrade the quality.

Edit: I've attached a screenshot from the video, My explanation would be that a 640x480 video have been converted to 720x480 by adding black bars of 40 pixels each on both sides. There is absolutely no reason for doing this. Your video would have looked like the second screenshot if no black bars added.


No, the original resolution is not 640 x 480. The reason the black bars are there because its lower than 480p resolution. Black bars will be there inevitably. Cutting them out would ruin the video on any display, this is with any older movie. I've flagged and tested the 3:2 aspect ratio and made an output at 4:3. I don't have old technology pre-2010 enough to have a native aspect ratio of 4:3 so 3:2 and 4:3 have little differences as its being displayed on a 16:9 monitor. I will never go back in time to only use 4:3 display monitors so regardless of what aspect ratio SD resolutions are at, they will inevitably have to be matched to current and future displays at 16:9. I just dont know if 720 x 480 at 3:2 is "proper" but I really dont know if it matters in the present 2020s day.

[dellsam34]

I don't think you understood a thing from all what I have said, Whatever you're doing, you're doing it wrong and I hope these are not other peoples memories.

Vhs is captured in 720x480 NTSC, out of 720 pixels, Approximately 704 is the active video area of any given scan line, give or take, it is NOT 640 pixels like in your video.

If you are interested in learning how to capture VHS and encode it properly we can proceed, but we need more info about your hardware, if you insist you're right and we're wrong then by all means keep doing what you're doing.

[whatastory]

There is no 3:2 display aspect ratio (the final shape of the displayed picture) in analog video, only 4:3 and 16:9. But they are both captured with a 720x480 frame. As noted earlier, you can keep the 720x480 (or crop to 704x480 -- which is more accurate) and flag the display aspect ratio to 4:3 or 16:9 (this requires that your player respects display aspect ratio flags, not all do) or you can resize to a 4:3 (640x480) or 16:9 (854x480) frame size and encode as square pixel.

Yes I'm aware of that. All my videos come out as 3:2 without any flagging or adjustments. I'm assuming regardless if its 3:2 or 4:3 it would have to get adjusted to a 16:9 display anyway as theres hardly any display solely with 4:3 aspect ratio anymore. If there is its probably crap and years old. I think VLC is able to flag as 4:3 but I don't see how it couldn't.

[whatastory]

I don't think you understood a thing from all what I have said, Whatever you're doing, you're doing it wrong and I hope these are not other peoples memories.

Vhs is captured in 720x480 NTSC, out of 720 pixels, Approximately 704 is the active video area of any given scan line, give or take, it is NOT 640 pixels like in your video.

If you are interested in learning how to capture VHS and encode it properly we can proceed, but we need more info about your hardware, if you insist you're right and we're wrong then by all means keep going what you're doing.

No they are not they are my own. VHS is not 720 x 480 native resolution it is significantly lower. What you're saying is wrong. You cannot fit VHS resolution into a 720 x 480 resolution fully. What isn't there can't be created. All the VHS videos that I have down have all been 720 x 480 they are not 640 pixels. I know exactly what I've done and you don't. With further post processing the videos have all come out as 3:2 aspect ratio if I had not indicated it.

[dellsam34]

No they are not they are my own. VHS is not 720 x 480 native resolution it is significantly lower. What you're saying is wrong. You cannot fit VHS resolution into a 720 x 480 resolution. What isn't there can't be created.

By rec.601 standard, All analog SD tape formats are sampled at 720x480 for NTSC and 720x576 for PAL/SECAM, 704x480 (704x576) being the active video resolution before flagging into a display format, You can argue all you want, this is the standard that has been finalized and agreed upon in the 80's.

[whatastory]

No they are not they are my own. VHS is not 720 x 480 native resolution it is significantly lower. What you're saying is wrong. You cannot fit VHS resolution into a 720 x 480 resolution. What isn't there can't be created.

By rec.601 standard, All analog SD tape formats are sampled at 720x480 for NTSC and 720x576 for PAL/SECAM, 704x480 (704x576) being the active video resolution before flagging into a display format, You can argue all you want, this is the standard that has been finalized and agreed upon in the 80's.

That doesn't matter, there isnt enough of that information and data within VHS resolution. If it is not natively recorded at 720 x 480 then it will inevitably have black bars theres literally nothing to argue. Every single video I have at SD resolution is 720 x 480. There are also options to convert analog into 640 x 480 as well. Standard 480p resolution has never even existed in the 80s and even most of the 90s because video was never digital in the first place in those time periods.

[dellsam34]

Your tapes are VHS, but the standard was designed for all analog tape formats including formats that can resolve up to that limit like Betacam SP, Whether you like it or not, your capture card adhere to the standard and samples at 720 each scan line even VHS. What you're doing to it after is called butchering, You have two choices, learn to do it the right way, or double down on your stubbornness and make a fool of yourself.

[whatastory]

Your tapes are VHS, but the standard was designed for all analog tape formats including formats that can resolve up to that limit like Betacam SP, Whether you like it or not, your capture card adhere to the standard and samples at 720 each scan line even VHS. What you're doing to it after is called butchering, You have two choices, learn to do it the right way, or double down on your stubbornness and make a fool of yourself.

They are 720 x 480. I'm not butchering anything I have converted all of them to 720 x 480. There has been nothing whatsoever I have done wrong and have not altered the settings in any way as they come out at 3:2 aspect ratio. It doesn't even matter anyway because 720 x 480 isn't native resolution regardless and it won't be shown full screen on most display monitors. Theres no manufacturer that creates a 4:3 aspect ratio monitor. 90 - 95% of TVs and monitors are all 16:9. Usually modern ones 1080p or 4k.

[dellsam34]

Encoding 720x480 into 4:3 frame or the way you do it by resizing to 640x480 and adding 40 black pixels on each side and encode to 3:2 would look exactly the same on a 16:9 monitor, The difference is you have lowered the horizontal resolution, Added unnecessary black borders that are neither compatible with 4:3 nor with 16:9 displays (the 16:9 display has to add about 66 black pixels on each side on its own), More steps, means more wasted time.

Instead of arguing why don't you share the workflow of your VHS capturing from capture to encode and we will point out the mistakes.

[CyberDragon33]

Encoding 720x480 into 4:3 frame or the way you do it by resizing to 640x480 and adding 40 black pixels on each side and encode to 3:2 would look exactly the same on a 16:9 monitor, The difference is you have lowered the horizontal resolution, Added unnecessary black borders that are neither compatible with 4:3 nor with 16:9 displays (the 16:9 display has to add about 66 black pixels on each side on its own), More steps, means more wasted time.

Instead of arguing why don't you share the workflow of your VHS capturing from capture to encode and we will point out the mistakes.

I have not done any conversion and have outputted anything to 640 x 480. The recommended method is to use a $3000 TBC with an ancient capture card and a windows xp machine. I don't have the money at all for either.

Workflow consists of vhs recorder jvc s2902u player connected to ES15 as a "TBC" which is then connected a dvd recorder to get them on dvd. I have tried the capture cards available brand new and they were not as good as dvd recorder method. Even tried the elgato and it wasn't good.

Step 2: I got the digital files off dvd using winx dvd ripper.

Step 3: needed to edit parts of video so I used shotcut.

Step 4: applied cropping overscan on virtualdub

Final step: I own avc video enhancer software for denoise which is excellent. The final output is SD resolution however they can only output 3:2 aspect ratio, but I can also add in a Step after this to adjust them all to 4:3 in shotcut with the noise reduction applied or something else. I don't know if that would degrade quality and it might be too excessive.

I use avc software as my final step because all other denoise methods are crap. It gets the cleanest video.

[Alwyn]

I'm not usually working with raw files and had to have encoded them all in software for editing and correction.

That was your mistake; you should have encoded them as 720x480 with a display aspect ratio of 4:3 with no borders and then edited/corrected them.

The ideal method is to import your raw captured AVI file into your video editor, edit/correct then export as 720x480 or 640x480 with a DAR of 4:3, depending on how your editor works or whether you want square pixels. 720x480 at 4:3 will give stretched pixels, 640x480 at 4:3 will give square pixels.

Anyway, the answer to your questions:

My question is that should 720 x 480 be left as a 3:2 aspect ratio or should it be changed to a 4:3 aspect ratio?

If you have (incorrectly) burned in those black bars, leave the file at 3:2. As Dellsam has shown you, the actual video image area is 4:3 (check it with a ruler). The black bars take it out to 3:2. If you make the file 4:3, the actual video image will be squashed inward because the black bars shouldn't be there.

If its left as a 3:2 aspect ratio how would it look on 16:9 displays compared to it being 4:3 aspect ratio?

It will look normal/as it is supposed to look, provided you haven't got your TV set to "stretch" or similar. You'll have big black side bars, with your 4:3 video image in the middle.

[_Al_]

whatastory - you know the theory but fail to understand that your video might be a square pixel AND in a letterbox 720x480, where about +- 640x480 seams to be your footage.
Most likely, your footage is square pixel, no aspect ratio whatsoever within 720x480 , so letterboxed. That was a wrong encoding. Something went wrong encoding that video, again, it was made perhaps square pixel and then for some reason unnecessarily letterboxed.

[dellsam34]

I have not done any conversion and have outputted anything to 640 x 480. The recommended method is to use a $3000 TBC with an ancient capture card and a windows xp machine. I don't have the money at all for either.

I'm not saying you did, but using wrong settings in a software you don't know how to use could trigger that process of resizing into 640x480 and add black borders because you tell it to output 3:2. This is the same whether you use $3000 TBC or a $5 easycap, The process is the same, the difference is the quality.

You can do all the processing in lossless AVI with a USB capture card that is known to work and avoid DVD and all lossy steps.

And you know using two profiles for the same person is most likely against the forum rules.

[CyberDragon33]

whatastory - you know the theory but fail to understand that your video might be a square pixel AND in a letterbox 720x480, where about +- 640x480 seams to be your footage.
Most likely, your footage is square pixel, no aspect ratio whatsoever within 720x480 , so letterboxed. That was a wrong encoding. Something went wrong encoding that video, again, it was made perhaps square pixel and then for some reason unnecessarily letterboxed.

I used AVC video enhancer for denoising so it outputs a file that reads 3:2 on mediafile. Nothing that I have ever done was 640 x 480 and have triple checked that in every encoding process it was 720 x 480. AVC goes frame by frame and pixel by pixel so that might be why it's outputting that. I could change this to 4:3 in a video editor, I use shotcut, but is this absolutely necessary? Or an alternative someone mentioned is just having it played back via a media player with a 4:3 aspect ratio.

[CyberDragon33]

I have not done any conversion and have outputted anything to 640 x 480. The recommended method is to use a $3000 TBC with an ancient capture card and a windows xp machine. I don't have the money at all for either.

I'm not saying you did, but using wrong settings in a software you don't know how to use could trigger that process of resizing into 640x480 and add black borders because you tell it to output 3:2. This is the same whether you use $3000 TBC or a $5 easycap, The process is the same, the difference is the quality.

You can do all the processing in lossless AVI with a USB capture card that is known to work and avoid DVD and all lossy steps.

And you know using two profiles for the same person is most likely against the forum rules.

I've tried multiple new capture cards they're all pretty bad. I find that doing it via dvd recording is the best and even professional businesses do it this way for a living. USB cards don't seem to get the quality very well. The only cards worth using is before 2010 and most of the time it's a risk cause they can be crapped out by now. I am not going to invest any of my time and money into using something outdated unless there's sufficient enough reviews about the quality and it has been thoroughly tested completely. The dvd recorder I used has been tested and working so this is what I use. Older capture cards also work terribly with windows 10/11. There's absolutely nothing wrong with the method I've done and professionals use this method, only difference is I can't get an expensive AF TBC

[Alwyn]

I used AVC video enhancer for denoising so it outputs a file that reads 3:2 on mediafile.

Make it output 4:3. My guess is that it then won't put black pillarbox bars on the sides.

I could change this to 4:3 in a video editor, I use shotcut, but is this absolutely necessary?

If you want your videos to display correctly, Yes. But if you do that, you'll have to crop the black bars away because they are messing up the correct, 4:3 display aspect ratio.

[_Al_]

I'd leave it as is. You can try to find a frame with a ball or round clock to see if you see real 1:1 ratio. It might be just about ok.

Do you have a device that would show it incorrectly? I think all devices would show it the same, does not matter what monitor or phone etc. you have.

[dellsam34]

I've tried multiple new capture cards they're all pretty bad. I find that doing it via dvd recording is the best and even professional businesses do it this way for a living. USB cards don't seem to get the quality very well. The only cards worth using is before 2010 and most of the time it's a risk cause they can be crapped out by now.

That's not true at all, There are good USB capture devices that work on modern OS's, Since you have a nice S-VHS VCR coupled with an ES-15 you have a decent setup to capture average to good quality lossless videos, You just need a decent USB capture video, Read here for some suggestions. Start reading from Lollo's post.

[Alwyn]

Now that I remember, a long time ago I did some transfers of DVD recordings (from a Foxtel box and also the internal HDD) from two different DVD recorders and their MPEG files (VOBs to be exact) had messed-up display aspect ratios. That could be why AVC is spitting out 3:2 videos instead of the correct 4:3.

[CyberDragon33]

I've tried multiple new capture cards they're all pretty bad. I find that doing it via dvd recording is the best and even professional businesses do it this way for a living. USB cards don't seem to get the quality very well. The only cards worth using is before 2010 and most of the time it's a risk cause they can be crapped out by now.

That's not true at all, There are good USB capture devices that work on modern OS's, Since you have a nice S-VHS VCR coupled with an ES-15 you have a decent setup to capture average to good quality lossless videos, You just need a decent USB capture video, Read here for some suggestions. Start reading from Lollo's post.

Elgato is terrible and I've tried it. Getting a usb capture device from ebay is a gamble. I've tried all the popular one brand new. None of them are as good as doing the dvd recorder method that I have done. Professionals spend multiple hours and earn money doing the dvd recorder method. I even went to them to ask what they do and none of them use usb devices this has been recent. It's sort of funny how you mention my crappy method of converting when you mention a lower quality way to do it. I would never do anyone's videos using usb capture

[CyberDragon33]

Now that I remember, a long time ago I did some transfers of DVD recordings (from a Foxtel box and also the internal HDD) from two different DVD recorders and their MPEG files (VOBs to be exact) had messed-up display aspect ratios. That could be why AVC is spitting out 3:2 videos instead of the correct 4:3.

Well I did a test of other videos like TV shows that I found which are 4:3 720 x 480p on AVC. Seems to be the software always outputs 3:2 regardless. It's not the recorder or anything else. It's AI processed so it might be why also it denoises so I think that changes the pixel orientation