Star Wars Conversions-Hit me with your best shot...

[JamieBecks23]

Well take a gander at my SW Trilogy I capped about 3 weeks ago. I bought new VHS tapes just for this as my old ones are a bit wary.

Go to Kazaa and search for "Tugan"

I put that as the keyword

[JamieBecks23]

Will someone please have a look

[Mythos2002]

3) this is why i'm posting again. when the aliens speak in the star wars movies the english subs appear in the letterbox bar which i will crop. therefore i have to copy the text and timings into a text file. I have seen how to write subs text, but how do i put these cues into a DVD? is there a guide anywhere on this? i see in ifoedits' dvd authoring section there is an option for "subpicture" i'm guessing that means subs, but what format does it require and how do i get text into it??
The only other thing i can think of doing is manually adding subs frame by frame into the cropped picture. Not Fun.

Hello,
I have a couple of questions. Did you ever find out how to do the subtitles correctly? What type of DV Cam do you recommend?

Mythos

[Quigonsean]

One problem you will have is you can't encode in 16:9 and get a good pic from a VHS Cassette. See when you watch a widescreen DVD those black bars are generated by the DVD Player they are not part of the video stream. The widescreen flag in the stream tells the DVD plaayer to generate them when its hooked to a 4:3 TV in 4:3 mode. A VHS is differant, on a VHS Tape those black bars are part of the image. If you could pull the tape out and hold it up to the light you would see black bars on the film above and below the image. Technically a Widescreen VHS is not widescreen at all it is 4:3 black bared, where a DVD is truly widescreen, and the DVD Player/Software (On PC) generates the black bars you see they are not part of the film. If you cap VHS then encode with tmpegenc in 16:9 the author in maestro in 16:9 you will have double size black bars and tiny movie picture because those bars are capped since they are part of the image on VHS then by encoding and authoring in widescreen your DVD Player will generate black bars above the ones from the cap since they are part of the picture you see. This applies to VHS, I don't know anything aboud LD.
BTW This was in answer to origanal Post

Sean

[MoovyGuy]

I have a fantastic set of DVDs of the three original SW films. They were transfered from original release LD to PC and authored with Sonic Scenarist.

A buddy of mine who calls himself DrGonzo online did them for me as we both own original copies of the films. Him on LD and me on VHS.

Anyway, I can explain the process that he used if it can be of help to anyone.

DrGonzo connected the SVideo output of his LD player along with audio to the input on a DV camcorder. A Cannon, I think.

He then connected the firewire output fro the DV camcorder to firewire in on his PC. He set up Adobe Premier 6.0 to capture the resulting stream to raw AVI. Needless to say this was large, .... on the order of 50 gig.

Once done, the audio & video were split. The audio was reencoded to AC3 2 Channel stereo at 192kbs.

The video was cleaned up, cropped to 16:9 and encoded at a bitrate of 5 megabit.

The audio & video along with some other niceties like menus and chapters were authored with Sonic Scenarist 2.6.

Once all was said & done, the final VIDEO_TS structure was burned to DVDr with Nero.

Needless to say, given the source, the final result is amazing and will easily hold me over until George gets off his ass and releases them on DVD ..... & since we have to wait until at least 2005 I hope they release on HD-DVD.

Cheers

[flaninacupboard]

to answer your question mythos, i certainly did! see this post
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=148438&highlight=

although note these are hard subs not selectable ones, however, in this case i always want them, i never want to turn what the aliens are saying off afterall...

i'm not using a DV camera, i am using a Canopus ADVC-50, which takes the analogue signal and turns them into a DV signal you connect to a firewire card. it's a glorified capture card than can only capture one format and one resolution, but it's top notch quality.

quigonsean, yes you are right vhs and indeed LD are 1.33:1 matted to whatever widescreen aspect you like, but using the crop tools in tmpgenc means you can make the active area anamorphic, and add the correct amount of matting to keep the right aspect ratio. tmpgenc does in fact do the calculation for you, you simply ask it to keep the aspect ratio.

[spiderman2k1]

Well this is how I would do it. Get a good laser disc player with S-video we all know that. But the capture card is the thing you will really need. I love the Dazzle 2 PCI card. I capture at 8000000 CBR mode and get really great capture's. Capture the movie split it to two DVD-R's or use DVD2ONE if the file size is to big. And it will be to big. I have done Indiana Jones all three of them from satellite dish and they all came out great not as good as real DVD's but very good for home made DVD's. Use MPEG2VCR to edit MPEG2 file's. Laser Disc is your best bet to make your own DVD but satellite is good to if you have it and do not want to spend a ton of money buying extra stuff. if you need help with dazzle 2 try this site to see if it work's with your mother board http://www.dazzlegeek.com/ the Hauppauge WinTV PVR-250 and 350 I heard good thing about. People rate Hauppauge and Dazzle very good ATI is good to but not as good as the other two. All these card's are little buggy so you will have to play with all of them to get the most out of them. Also windows 2000 and windows XP are your best bet with NTFS file system

[Quigonsean]

flaninacupboard - Question since you seem to get this W/S stuff. I've done lots-o-reading and I am getting lost on this. Bear with me I hope I can get this clear cause I would really like to make my SW and Indianna J W/S VHS into true 16:9W/S. I say true because to avoid confusion upfront there are 2 types of 16:9. True 16:9 like used in hollywood on DVD's and "Poor Man's" widescreen as on Digital camcorders. What do I mean. Well True Hollywood WS keeps a vertical Res of 480 but increases the horizontal res by 40some odd percent to like 896 or something close to that.
Poormans WS like on Digi Cams keeps the horozontal at 720 and blocks off 25 percent of the vertical res. to 300 something.
Both result in an aspect ratio of 16:9 but Where Hollywood Real WS increases screen area by 40 someodd percent. Poormans actually loses 25% of screen area.

Now 4:3 Aspect in broadcast Res = 720x480, whilst 16:9 is 800somthing x 480. This is what throws me off.
First you need to recognize Aspect Ratio, and Resolution are 2 differant things intertwined yet also very independant as well.
On a VHS Tape in WS you image is actually a 4:3 Aspect 720x480 Image with a true 16:9 (I don't know in this case the pixel resolution) fram of the actual movie inside it.

So if I cap a WS VHS flick, the crop off the bars in Tmpegenc I will have a mpeg movie that is true 16:9 Aspect but much smaller Pixel Resolution, however it still contains 40 some Percent more screen area than a Full screen ver of the same flick. (Sort of like is you capped a 4:3 flick at 720x480 then could reencode it to 360x240 it would still be 4:3 and have the same exact screen are ie no loss os what you see on screen just smaller, but since the resolution is non standard no authoring app would acept it[Well some might then reeencode, but that is imaterial her])

Now I would assume Thats why you would then after cropping black bars reencode in Tmpegenc with it set to 16:9 keep aspect Ratio. It would then keep it at the true 16:9 with increased veiwing area over a fullscreen, resize the resolution to 800some odd by 480 which would result in loss of image quality, just like blowing up a 352x240 up to 720x480 you lose sharpness and gain blockiness and pixlation.

If this is the case I would assume you'd have to use Maestro, scenarist, etc... A true Pro App that supports real widescreen 16:9 in order to auther an Anamorphic WS. Since WS is 800somethin by 480 and consumer apps even the ones that claim 16:9 support will reject it because they will red 800some by 480 as nonstandard resolution, eventho it is standar WS Resolution

I hope all this made sense if so please if you know the answers please let me know. As I said I'd love to cap my WS StarWars Trill and Author in true WS so on my POS TV the DVD player Generates Bars, but on the WS TV upstairs I get no Black bars. Unlike the VHS WS on the WS TV not only has black bars on top and bottom, but also on the sides because the top and bottom bars are part of the movie on VHS and the TV sees it as a 4:3 fullsceen movie.
Thanks for any help
Sean aka Quigonsean

PS check out these pages great info on Widescreen, plus the best Maestro guiude I've everseen, even a huge guide on making menus and sublayers for maestro in photoshop
http://www.geocities.com/wunder01au/widescreen.html
http://www.geocities.com/wunder01au/widescreen2.html
http://www.geocities.com/wunder01au/widescreen3.html
http://www.geocities.com/svaussie01au/frame.html
http://www.high-techproductions.com/widescreen.htm
http://www.geocities.com/eaussie01au/maestro.html
http://www.geocities.com/eaussie01au/photoshop.html
http://www.geocities.com/aussie01au/index.html

[flaninacupboard]

ok, this seems to be confusing a lot of people, so i'll do my best to do a quick guide. ok when you cap your vhs you will have a file that looks like this



so load it up in tmpgenc and use the clip frame tool until you have it removed all the widescreen borders, until it looks like this




now simply tell TMPGenc that your output is 16:9, and in the advanced tab tell it full screen (keep aspect ratio) and the resulting file will look like this



which should now display properly on your 4:3 tv and your 16:9 tv, although as you say it needs to be authored as 16:9. ifoedit will do it, as will dvdit, they're the two i use, check with yours first.

[DJRumpy]

Yup. Your describing anamorphic widescreen. The extra width is squeezed horizontally into 720 pixels of width. During playback, your player will stretch the image horizontally back to the full 858 pixel width (I don't remember the exact number, but that one is sticking in my head. I'm sure someone else can verify/correct..anyone?). I don't know if it was a technical limitation to fit the format (dvd), or a tradeoff for performanc reasons. For whatever reason, Anamorphic is resized horizontally (squeezed -->[ ]<--) to fit into a 720 pixel width, and then stretched to it's full width on playback.

Don't worry about your authoring software. They care nothing for the contents of your video, or how it's squeezed in. They only see resolution. As long as your video is within specs for resolution, it doesn't care what you do. You could have a video resized to the size of a thumbnail, with everything else letterboxed, and it wouldn't know the difference.

Here's an excellent link on the topic of Aspect Ratio's. One of my favorites:

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/anamorphic/

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/anamorphic/aspectratios/widescreenorama.html

The above links will help even the most media challenged understand aspect ratios.

To create 16:9 aspect ratios:

If your video is 1.85:1, resize it to a full 480 Vertical for 16:9.
DVD: 720x480
SVCD: 480x480
CVD: 352x480

If your video is 2.35:1, resize it to 360 Vertical, & add letterboxing
DVD: 720x360 (with 60 top & 60 bottom letterboxing) giving you 720x480
SVCD: 480x360 (again with 60 top & 60 bottom) for 480x480
CVD: 352x360 ( same as SVCD )

The horizontal is somewhat unimportant, as it's always going to be full width for your format (i.e. 720 for DVD, 480 for SVCD/CVD).

I should note that CVD, and SVCD do not technically support 16:9 aspect ratios. Try a sample with your player first. If it has problems, then and you encode using these reslutions, you should set your aspect ratio to 4:3. They will look 'right' on a 16:9 TV. They will NOT look right on a 4:3 TV.

[Quigonsean]

Ahh I see, but I was correct in my assertion that Tmpegenc would resize it resolution wise not aspect ratio wise since aspect ratio is correct but resolution is small. This is noticeable in those pics as the bottom 16:9 Tmpegenc output is funky looking in that it is stretched vertically making people taller and skinnier, as well as making circles look egg shaped. So you are better leaving it alone and authoring in 4:3 unless you like the people in said flick to look like they lost 50pounds but grew 2 1/2 feet taller.

Thanks,
Sean

[Mythos2002]

I'm interested in the Canopus ACDV-50, but I would hate to be stuck at one resolution. Would capturing these films at 720x480 be the correct resolution with the black bars? What would the correct resolution be if you capture them without the bars? Also, does DV have a gigabyte barrier like AVI on FAT32? Thanks.

Mythos

Sorry. The two previous posts came in before mine.

[DJRumpy]

Sheese..two posts after mine..I should type faster...

Quigonsean, they looked stretched, because they are supposed to. Read my post above (sorry..took too long typing it in... ). All animorphic widescreen movies that are encoded as 16:9 are squeezed horizontally into a 720 pixel width -->[ ]<-- and then stretched back to the full width during playback. This is affected directly by the Widescreen/4:3 setting on your DVD player. This tells it what to do with the video during playback. Either stretch it to full width (16:9), or stretch it to full width, and shrink it to fit a 4:3 aspect ratio(4:3).

[DJRumpy]

Mythos, if you capture at 720x480, your source is still going to be 4:3. However, if it's letterboxed, you can crop off the letterboxing, and resize, according to the source video's true aspect ratio. Usually letterboxed TV shows are 1.85:1. See the resolutions above on how to resize/letterbox.

[Quigonsean]

Yes they may be stretched, but they are stretched proportionatly. ie my copy of SW EP1 The Phantom menace looks the same on WS VHS, as on DVD. The above pic from I think LOTR (Not sure nevr saw it) is not stretched proportionatly it is stretched vertically only resulting i a person who is taller and thinner and circles will be egg shaped. Now hollywood DVD WS flicks maybe streched but as stated it is proportionatly. Cutting off the black bars on a VHS WS Cap the reencoding in 16:9 results in a vertical only stretch or at least from the example pic above it does. That is the differance between real cinama Widescreen, and poorman's widescreen. The VHS cap is 4:3 period, to cut out part of it (the film w/o bars) then stech the resulting film image to 16:9 proportions results in a distorted image, just like the above example. The first 2 are fine the origanl cap, and the origanal cap with bars cropped, but after encoding with Tmpegenc it is now streched vertically resulting in taller skinnier people.
This is because in when a Hollywood setup makes the DVD they use the full WS 16:9 Frame at full size. But when making a VHS WS they shrink the pixel resolution to fit in a 4:3 fram without losing width then fill in the top and bottom with bars. When you crop these bars from a VHS Cap then encode in 16:9 the width stays the same because it has too, but the hight is streched back to 480 thus resulting in a streched image looking like its viewed in a funhouse mirror.
This happens cause WS DVD's and WS VHS movies are made differantly than each other, but the origanl source from the camera is the same.
This only applies to VHS Capture, well and LD caps as well.
But by cropping and encoding, all you doing is cutting out part of the image (Remember the bars are part of the image on VHS unlike DVD) then resizing it witch results in a funky looking image. In order to make it look correct like on a purchased DVD, and play on a WS TV With out bars youd need to generate your mpeg from the origanal source, that is the camera used to film the movie.

Sean
PS Just Reread you post

Yup. Your describing anamorphic widescreen. The extra width is squeezed horizontally into 720 pixels of width. During playback, your player will stretch the image horizontally back to the full 858 pixel width (I don't remember the exact number, but that one is sticking in my head. I'm sure someone else can verify/correct..anyone?). I don't know if it was a technical limitation to fit the format (dvd), or a tradeoff for performanc reasons. For whatever reason, Anamorphic is resized horizontally (squeezed -->[ ]<--) to fit into a 720 pixel width, and then stretched to it's full width on playback

That is how it is done when made in Hollywood from the origanal source, but we don't have the origanal source, and streching around a VHS cap don't look right, Thats why the Hollywood DVD does not look stretched, but the VHS Cap cropped and reencoded with resizing does look stretched and funky like in a funhouse mirror. So we are both correct, we are talking 2 differant things within the same catagory.

[DJRumpy]

Now hollywood DVD WS flicks maybe streched but as stated it is proportionatly.

This is not true. They are squished, just as the image above is. Extract the 16:9 VOB to an AVI, and play it back, and it will look exactly the same as the clip above.

If yours is stretched proportionally (It looks right), then it's encoded for 4:3. Many of the first DVD's were encoded like this. The box says it's 16:9. Viewing the movie on a 4:3 TV looks like widescreen 16:9, but the MPEG actually is encoded and has an aspect ratio of 4:3. It was improperly encoded. Viewing this type of DVD on a 16:9 TV results in a half height movie. Early DVD's, like "The Thing", and "Deep Rising" were improperly encoded like this. I've got a handful that all exhibit this problem. Widescreen 4:3 movies have simply been 'unsqeezed', and reduced in size. Reversing the process put's it back in the original widescreen 16:9 format, but it involves removing excess letterboxing that was added (or all for 1.85:1 aspect ratios, as 1.85), and resizing appropriately.

If you take a 4:3 widescreen movie, and chop off the letterboxing, and resize it to proper 16:9 animorphic, then you have a animorphic widescreen movie. The quality may not be the same as the original, but the method used to create it is valid, and exactly the same as is used to create a industry standard DVD.

When you crop these bars from a VHS Cap then encode in 16:9 the width stays the same because it has too, but the hight is stretched back to 480 thus resulting in a streched image looking like its viewed in a funhouse mirror.

This results in a stretched image, when viewed with a player that does not understand the aspect ratio. AVI for instance doesn't understand aspect ratio, so viewing a capture like this, it would look 'tall'. A properly encoded MPEG, with a 16:9 DAR (aspect ratio), though, would tell the player to stretch the video width, and the resulting output would look exactly as it is supposed to. If you made it look 'normal' with a 16:9 DAR, then you would have a squashed image when viewing it on a 16:9 TV.

Remember the bars are part of the image on VHS unlike DVD

This is not entirely acurate. A 2.35:1 movie still has letterboxing. It's not as drastic as you would see on a 4:3 widescreen movie, but it's still there. It's 120 Pixels in height give or take (60 on top, 60 on bottom). This is because a widescreen TV is designed for 1.85:1 aspect ratios. This aspect ratio fits fullscreen on a 16:9 TV. With the higher aspect ratio on a 2.35:1 ratio movie, it's still necessary to include letterboxing. If you didn't, you'd have to chop off the left and right side to maintain a proper aspect ratio.

The only thing were doing, is reversing the process used to create a 4:3 movie from a 16:9 source in the first place.
To create an original 16:9 DVD, they squish the image horizontally, and encode as 16:9 anamorphic.

To create a 4:3 movie from the original 16:9 source, they simply resize (reduce) it both horizontally, and vertically to maintain aspect ratio, which as you've already stated, adds letterboxing.

To reverse the process:
Remove excess letterboxing. Resize (enlarge) and Squeeze horizontally. Encode with 16:9 DAR.

[menace]

considering that over 10000 people have checked out this post I would say there is a definite interest (myself include) That being said, a comprehensive guide would be great (wink, wink, nudge, nudge)

Seriously though a few questions:

1. Given that there are subtitles infrequently throughout the trilogy, is it feasible to only crop the top of the picture and have tmpgenc put it back in as solid black--would this work or would the picture be all skewed?

2. Ignoring the anamorphic debate for the moment--if my widescreen tv has built in picture resizing, do I have anything to gain by doing my dvd's in anamorphic, i.e. quality wise?

3. when i deinterlace the movie, it tends to soften the picture, which becomes noticeable on the bigscreen--for those who have done it, how did you overcome this--what filters settings etc.?

4. the originals i have are pretty good LD's in digital sound only (dolby i assume)--is there any advantage to ripping the sound out and then muxing it back in--seems like a wasted step in my mind--what is gained from this quality wise? Or is this a synch issue.

i have every confidence that between the 10,000 of us we can come up with some real nice dvd's to replace the aging VHS and LD we are currently saddled with (insert lucas jab here)

[Quigonsean]

AH Ha DJ I think mesa got it now. First you gotta relize I aibn't done it before so I was going on what I knew of WS, and then seeing that screen grab just convinced me I was correct. But I got it now I think.

Check it out... When you crop the bars you now have a flick that is 16:9 Aspect but incorrect Pixel Resolutiuon for standard. So you encode with the encoder set to 16:9 Keep Aspect Ratio. This would keep it correctly at 16:9 ratio but put a flag in the header that tells said DVD Player "Hey I'm WS resize, stretch me to 800whatever it isx480 please" And hence it does giving you a correct picture that is leterboxed on a 4:3 TV but not on a WS TV. Now I would imagine for the sake of the authoring app accepting it that the header tells it it is 720x480 so it will not reject the stream, but the flag is there, and then by authoring in 16:9 it keeps the flag there that tells the DVD player "Hey I ain't really 720x480, I am widescreen 16:9 please size me correctly for display". See that screengrab really threw me, but I'm gonna assume it was taken from some media player that can't read the flag that says resize to Nx480 aspect 16:9please, so it displays it as 720x480 giving it the funhouse mirror look, where a DVD player or Power DVD would not, since it can read the WS flag encoded in the mpeg stream header.

If this is the case, then capping your WS VHS tapes and putting them on DVD in true Anamorphic Widescreen is gravey, it just takes the patiens of having to crop, and encode in say Tmpegenc which can take 8-16 hours depending on your pc and mpeg stream size. It would just be- as simple as 1 cap movie, 2 run it through tmpegenc set to crop what is it 12 1/2 lines off top and bottom as well ass set to 16:9 keep aspect ratio, 3 Author in a proggie that support true Anamorphic WS like Maestro or Scenarist in 16:9 WS mode, 4 compile and burn, 5 put in DVD player hit play get lots-o-junk food and relax patting yourself on the back for a job well done.

ohh BTW I hope you didn't think I was trying to argue with you, as I said in one of my posts I was/am genuinely interested in knowing if a VHS cap could be made into Ana WS, and if so how to do it correctly.
Thanks for the help, I think I finnaly got it.

Sean

[flaninacupboard]

menace.

1: yes you could do this, i however wanted to rplace both borders for a few reasons, 1, to make them both pure black, more efficient encoding, 2 to make them both pure black so they don't look different, 3, the subs fall out of the bottom of the frame if you try and do anamorphic, which i want to 3, i don't like the original subs colour
to see how to replace the subs yourself see this thread https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=148438&highlight=

2: if you see no difference in quality when using the picture resize funtion on your TV then no you don't. i however easily notice the difference between an anamorphic image and a resized 4:3 letterbox image.to my eyes, very ugly.

3: i don't have to deinterlace. i'm in PAL land, so while the format is interlaced the frames are progressive, the only exception being the end credits.

4: i had trouble synching up the seperately recorded digital audio and my avi capture. this time around i'm capping the sound along with the picture so i have no synch issues, and because i'm using the ADVC-50 it will already be recorded at 48khz. the quality difference is going to irrelevant unless you want to use PCM sound, dolby digital compression (or any compression) will make the difference negligible.

Quigonsean, glad you're getting there. the last image (the funky one) is as DJRumpy tried to explain what an anamorphic movie looks like stored on a DVD, so it's not incorrect. try this, look at the first image, then look at the third, it's stretched, obviously. now, keep looking at the third image and find your monitor controls and make the screen smaller from top to bottom, keep going until it's two thirds it's original height. picture number three now looks correct, but is exactly the same resolution. that's what happens to it on a widescreen TV.

and yes it was lotr two towers.

[DJRumpy]

I don't think an entire guide would be necessary. The cropping/resizing is pretty standard stuff. You can do it in either VirtualDub, TMPGenc, or my preferred AVISynth.

It is not necessary that the top and bottom borders match exactly (I know you anal folks are cringing). Just crop to your image area. Since the edge of your video will tend to be a little 'noisy', you should crop at least a pixel or three into your image area. If you are more than a bit anal, and demand all of your image be untouched, then leave your crop on the black side of the image. I should also note that you can use this same method to turn a true 4:3 movie, into a 16:9 movie, simply by changing the aspect ratio, at the cost of your movies top and bottom image area. More on this later...

VirtualDub:
To crop your captures in VirtualDub, you select the following:
VIDEO | FILTERS
Click and and select NULL TRANSFORM. Click OK.
The "Cropping" button should become available. Select it.
Here you set your Y1, and Y2 offsets. Since it's a GUI, it fairly straightforward. Increase the number to increase the amount cropped from the top and bottom.

TMPGenc:
Click the Setting button in the bottom right corner.
Select the Advanced tab.
Double click the Clip Frame filter.
Move the timeline slider to any movie part to better see what your doing.
Increase the TOP and BOTTOM values to crop your movie. You can also use the arrow keys to quickly scroll through the numbers. Just click your mouse in the top/bottom area, and use the up/down arrows.

AVISynth:
With AVISynth, there are a few different ways to crop. The most straigforward is the CROP command.
Crop(clip,left,top,width,height)
The 'clip' switch is not required if your video is not assigned to a variable (i.e video=AVISource("c:\blah\video.avi") ). The script assumes your captured video clip is 720x480, and you want to crop the top and bottom letterboxing off, the script would look like this:

AVISource("c:\mymovies\myvideo.avi")
Crop(0,60,720,360)

The first value ( 0 ) is the amount to crop from the left of the video.
The second value ( 60 ) is the amount to crop from the top.
The third value ( 720 ) is the amount of width to retain. This value is taken AFTER the first value. If you have 720 total width, and you subtract 10 from the left of the video, you only have 710 total pixel width remaining. The number you specify must be less than or equal to the remaining width, since we took 0 from the left of the clip, we specify the full width here.
The fourth value ( 360 ) is the remaining vertical height of the movie to retain AFTER the second value ( 60 ). We've cropped of the first 60 pixels in this example, leaving us with 420 pixels in heigt ( 480 - 60 = 420 ). In most cases, your top and bottom borders will be about the same, so if you double that top border value (60 x2), and subtract it from your total height (480 - 120), you would have the middle height of your movie ( 360 ).

Any of these methods above can also be used to convert a fullscreen 4:3 movie into a 16:9. Of course, you'll loose any image area that you crop out. To figrue the amount to crop, just divide the WIDTH of your movie, by the Aspect Ratio that you want it it be.

Example:
My movie is 720 Pixels wide. I want to convert it to a 2.35:1, or a 1.85:1 movie:

720 / 2.35 = 306
720 / 1.85 = 389

You would crop your movie to 720 x 306, or 720 x 389 respectively.

Anamorphic Widescreen (16:9)
Last but not least, you must resize it to a 16:9 anamorphic resolution. If your movie is 1.85:1, you simply resize the vertical to it's full height, without any letterboxing (720x480). A 1.85:1 movie is "full screen" on a wide screen display.
If your movie is 2.35:1, you would resize the video to 360 vertical height, and add letterboxing to fill the vertical to the full 480 height:

60 letterbox

360 image area

60 letterbox

The AVISynth script would look like this:

AVISource("c:\mymovies\myvideo.avi")
Crop(0,87,720,306)
BicubicResize(720,360)
AddBorders(0,60,0,60)

The above script crops your movie to 720x306 (2.35:1). Resizes it to 720x360, and adds letterboxing.

In VirtualDub, you would select:
VIDEO | FILTERS
Select ADD
Select RESIZE
Input your new Horz. and Vert sizes
For 2.35:1, put in: 720 width and 360 height
for 1.85:1, put in: 720 width and 480 height
Since your enlarging, select Bicubic for the FilterMode
For 2.35:1 movies, you will need a small letterbox to maintain your aspect ratio on playback:
Select 'Expand Frame' checkbox, and put in your video total heigh/width
of 720 Width, and 480 Height. This sets the output video to 720x480, with letterboxing (this is required for 2.35:1 video, even for widescreen).

[DJRumpy]

One last thing. To figure the amount to crop from the top and bottom. Do the math for your aspect ratio:

720 / 2.35 = 306

Subtract that from the movie's current total height:

480 - 306 = 174

The 174 is the total amount to crop. Divide it by 2 to get the amount to take from top and and bottom:

174 / 2 = 87

You would crop 87 from the top, and 87 from the bottom.

[menace]

Sorry to keep hijacking the thread , but since I am converting star wars LD to DVD this seemed to be the right place....anyhow

Could someone please clarify whether or not I need to deinterlace AFTER I have IVTC in virtualdub? Theoretically this should delete duplicate frames and bring the movie back to 24fps correct? Is deinterlacing after this just a waste of time or is it required to clean up any interlace frames that arrived as a RESULT of the IVTC process. These terms give me a headache because they are tossed about so often in the same conversations-- Also, will a 24fps source cause problems when its eventually converted to Mpeg2 DVD?

[rwarren]

I maybe missing the point on part of this post but why just buy the DVDs instead of converting from LD? I bought and I am pretty sure the came for the LD copies. They are not the original films but they are the same as the LD copy. It would save some work. I think you can buy them online for about $30 for the trilogy.

Richard

[flaninacupboard]

menace,
the purpose of InVerse TeleCline, is to reverse the telecline process. go read up on it, google search should find plaenty of info. after you have run IVTC you are left with 24 progressive (i.e. not interlaced) frames a second. there will be no artifacts unless the program you use for IVTC is detecting the field order wrong, so running any de-interlace filter will just degrade the image. as for 24fps vid causing a problem, from what i understand, you need to set TMPGenc to 24fps(internally 30) or run your mpeg through pulldown.exe if you are using cce you need to use pulldown.exe
i don't have this problem, i'm in PAL land. i don't have to IVTC either :P

Rwarren,
there's a couple of reasons i want to do it
1) i wasn't happy with the quality of the screenshots i saw from bootleg copies, i know my LD looks better.
2) i want editorial control over my film (goodbye, stupid CG Jabba scene!!)
3)i wasn't sure if the bootlegs were anamorphic
4)some bootlegs have yellow japanese or malyasian subtitles, and no alien subs
5) it's a project and a challenge all in one
6)if i'm not happy with something, i can do it all again
7)if i want to sell on any copies of what i make, i can be happy that i'm selling my services as a video expert, and not the copyright of the material.

[vhelp]

flaninacupboard..

and you forgot one last thing to add to your list..

8) because its our hobby and we love the challenge.



Hi menance..

Theorectially, no, you don't or should not have to de-Interlace after an
IVTC process. As we all know, IVTC is not 100% accurate, and in short,
will show some left over Interlace. But, even running a second form of
Interlace remover could woren your final encode. So, it's probably in
your best interest to finalizing w/ just an IVTC and author to CDR/DVDR

menance.. Also, thread is basically about LD/VHS best method of encodes.
So, you are pretty safe posting your questions (specially StarWars) here.
I was thinking of doing a Blade Runner here and post a sample..

Anyways..
Has anybody done the following WS version on VHS of:
* Blade Runner .. ( ?? )
* American Graffiti .. (digitally recorded)
* Animal House .. (digitally recorded)

And can post some samples of such ??

I have the WS version on VHS for these (and other) movies but I'm not
sure of it's true Aspect Ratio issues.

I going to try and capture them samiltaniously w/ my:
* DC10+
* ADVC-100

Both these cards are hardware based, and if I turn off the sound on one
of them ie, the DC10+ then I will not have any issues w/ dropped frames.
Why ?? because I'm still debating the quality of the final encode from
these two devices, and plus, it's fun stuff for me to try beyond normal
ideas and such. Anyways.. I'm still rolling preporations on this process,
in hopes to post BOTH versions for final analysis.

Any thoughts on above are welcomed.
Have a good evening all.
-vhelp

[DJRumpy]

Also post which IVTC filters your using. My experience leads me to the inevitable fact that it guesses the wrong duplicate frame, and you end up with a jerky scene. I've ended up going back to the standard VDub framefrate IVTC setting to do my captures.

The sad thing is, that the best rips of Star Wars, Empire, and Jedi I have, are all on VCD, which I nabbed a few months ago (that alone should speak volumes). Numerous posts since then have all been very bad quality, hacks, & butcher jobs.

Do LaserDisc players have component outs? Does anyone have a capture card with component in? Composit/s-video just doesn't cut it for transfers. They look awful. The color looks faded, and the video noise from the transfer requires a smoother, which softens the image.

[menace]

Thanks guys! I IVTC'd only last night and upon review it looks pretty darn good but I do find some hiccups in the frames From this, i'm assuming it chose the wrong scene to cut in some instances--is there any way to correct this or should I IVTC AS I capture in the future--would this even help. Also, interesting thing is that my IVTC's files are bigger than their captured counterparts?? I thought when it went from 29.97 fps to 24fps, the file size would actually decrease. In Vdub I used the preserve framerate and IVTC-adaptive.

Also, when i join all three parts and run through tmpgenc (under the film option) will this correct any hiccups I see in media player--is media player even a decent avi viewer or is there a more accurate one).

Thanks!

[flaninacupboard]

DJRumpy,
Laserdiscs store their video in composite form, so while top end players do have component out, it's no better than composite out. the PAL versions of LD at 5mhz are actually very nice to watch, a while ago in this thread i posted some clips, go download them and take a look. while a video smoother of somekind is probably in order, this is no different to most DVD's. i don't think i could name a single original disc i own that i can't see evidence of smoothing, but it varies from barely noticeable to atrocious, and a barely noticeable setting (tmpgencs built in noise reduction at say 8 1 12) does a great job of cleaning what the encoder sees, with little percepible difference to your end result.

menace, what video codec are you outputting to in virtual dub? i've been advised to frameserve the vdub output, but i had no success with this from TMPGenc, possibly because i was running an IVTC and 24->25fps conversion at the same time and it confused VFAPI convertor. In the end i used TMPGenc to output DV, so it was the same file size as the input.

[menace]

sorry should have mentioned that I started with huffy and ivtc in huffy as well--I've been taking baby steps on this primarily because I have the space and want to see the results of each step to know where something went wrong (if in fact it does). My steps so far have been to capture in huffy at 720x480 @48mhz, then edit each end of the clips in vdub, then ivtc the resulting clips individually. Any ideas on the choppiness--bad IVTC job you think?

[DJRumpy]

The choppines is the same that I was referring to. Noise in your video will cause the IVTC filte to guess incorrectly (you are using an adaptive filter right?).

If your not using an adaptive filter, you should be. Most video's do not follow the same telecine pattern throughout the whole film. Editing ruins that in fairly short order, so an adaptive filter is in order. It will attempt to adapt to this changing pattern. When it guesses wrong, it deletes the wrong field, combining two fields that should not be together, and you get the hiccup. Unfortunately, all IVTC filters I've tried exhibit this. That's why I asked for everyone to include the filters their using, settings, and results. Some may be better than others, but at the risk of the herky jerkies, I now just leave my material telecined, unless I'm pressed for space, or bitate.