How to convert 320x240 to fullscreen with quality?

[shinomen]

I've got a fullscreen movie that is 320x240 that I want to convert (resize) to fit a 4:3 screen with the 16:9 aspect ratio. I've read a couple of guides that say I should just put black bars around the area that the picture doesn't take up, but that makes the movie too small to be enjoyable. And when I use tmpeg enc to make it full screen 16:9 I get bad picture quality (blockiness). Does anyone know of a better method to make the picture bigger without losing quality?

Help Please!

[shinomen]

Anyone have any ideas on this. (the forum has been up and down so I'm guessing not alot of people have seen this)

[shinomen]

I was just reading over my first post and realized I said fullscreen 320x240. What I meant to say was that I have a 320x240 that is widescreen and I would like to be able to resize it to 720x480 hopefully without losing quality.

Thanks.

[DVation]

i have to say im slightly confused by exactly what you're asking...but ill attempt to answer u...i think u want to take ur widescreen movie and make it fullscreen...this of course is probably going to cause some distortion. i would first suggest changing your Video Arrange Method under the advanced settings tab to 'full screen (keep aspect ratio)' for the best quality. if thats unacceptable u may reluctantly try 'No Margin (keep aspect ratio)' ... that should do it for ya.

[shinomen]

No, that's not it. I've got a movie that was shot with a camera in 320x240. Now the movie that was shot was a widescreen movie. What I want to do is keep the widscreen ratio but resize the movie to 720x480. See, the problem is that the movie is so small that when I watch it on my tv, it's going to be hard to see. But when I make it go full screen letterbox, I get really bad video quality (big pixels). What I'm wondering is if anyone knows of a good way to resize this 320x240 to my projected size with losing little or no quality. I've been experimenting with VirtualDub's resize filter but haven't had time to really get into it. I figured someone has run into the same problem and might know of a way to do this.

thanks

[MITSUI_1]

Can't be done "losing little or no quality"

You've got a little bit of information and you're trying to scale it to a larger area. But even with the larger area, you've only got a little bit of information. Its impossible to create information that isn't there to fill in all that extra detail you'll have on the 720x480 canvas.

Best bet is to go for a TV viewing format that is closest to your source resolution, which in this case would be a VCD at 352x240.

[Stinky]

It seems like your dealing with a high bitrate 320x240 --- I wrote a guide for low bitrate 320x240 captures -- because after endless trying (and combinations of filters) I could not make 320x240 into another size and sustain the quality. you can resize down with great results but resizing up is a bitch!

your asking the resize filters to "guess" at the pixels (is that the right word) when it makes the resolution greater than the source

my guide - http://www.vcdhelp.com/forum/userguides/91588.php

good luck

[shinomen]

Mitsu_1, If I put it at that resolution it's still not going to fill up the screen right? Also if it makes any difference I'll be burning it to dvd with my dvd burner. I was thinking of maybe resizing it in small proportions. Like take it a couple hundred pixels at a time on each side using virtual dub.

I understand what your saying about having to fill space that isn't even there, so what does virtual dub do when it resizes video larger than the original and asks what option I want, nearest or bicubic (I think that's a couple of the options anyway)?

Thanks for the response

[Mordant]

Have you tried making a VCD and playing it on your DVD player yet? If you make a standard VCD the resolution is 352x240, and yes it fills the whole screen. If your source is widescreen (letterbox) then it will fill the width of your screen and black bars will be on the top and bottem.

[shinomen]

No I haven't tried that yet, I'm actually burning dvds nowdays. Will that work in the same fashion??

[spidey]

When you re-encode it, I believe you could set the source aspect ratio to 1:1 VGA then it will simply to a 1:1 representation while re-sizing it to your disply you've set for the output format ratio