KVCD (or really just any VCD) Encoding for a 16:9 television

[Goring]

Hello,
I am having trouble trying to figure out what resolution I should use to burn a vcd for a 16:9 television. The file I want to burn in also in 16:9. Should I preserve the aspect ratio, or go 4:3, or 1:1, or what? Should I go to 480:480 or use KVCD's weird 480:352 or whatever it is? Very confused- Aaron

[Goring]

Anyways what I meant to ask is, does the DVD player change the resolution to fit the tv, or do I have to manually select the right one (to which I am ignorant).-Aaron

[crusty]

If you want a 16:9 keep at this aspect in tmpg although change the size to 512x288 as this is the correct size for mpeg 1 16:9. and your dvd will play whatever aspect is on your disk there are a few limited options in your setup menu which you may want to try.

[Goring]

I think I just realized something disturbing- the idiot who encoded the file added black bars to the top and bottom of the file. Do I need to trim these bars in order to get the full viewing from my 16:9 tv? How would I do that? Thanks a lot- Aaron

[crusty]

that sounds like 14:9...how do you know it is 16:9? are the people in it stretched vertically?if they are then you have what is called 16:9 deep letterbox and if you try and remove the black bars you will loose information at the top, bottom and sides.

[gll99]

I don't have a tested answer for you but just some comments on why these bands may be there.

The guy who added the black bars was not an idiot. He had a 4:3 display TV and wanted to maintain the original look of the movie. It has been said that the top and bottom black areas which are normally part of the movie can slow down the encoder and increase file size because the encoder enterprets any little flicker in the black bands and tries to encode them and they get compressed. By inserting a black mask instead its basically pure.
If he centered on the image and stretched to the top to fill the screen he would have to cut from each side. If he told tmpgenc that it was a 16:9 movie he couln't have used the mask trick or would have ended up with an even wider top and bottom bar. So it was a choice that suited his needs.

Now the problem for you is you want to zoom back to the useable video area because your tv has 16:9 display. The black bands are now part of the actual video image and no longer controllable.

The only way I could possibly think of is to feed the mpeg back to virtualdub to be read use the smart resize filter (I think that's the one) to cut the bars out and accept the new size as is (don't stretch it back), frameserve immediately to tmpgenc and tell it that is a 16:9 video but give it the full dimensions that you want on output (same width but 240 or 480 for height whatever the original was before you cut it in virtualdub. Burn the output and hope it looks ok on 16:9 tv.

[Goring]

I apologize for calling the guy an idiot- I understand the problem and the problem of viewing 16:9 on 4:3. Anyways the file is in 4:3, I just thought it was 16:9 since thats how it looked in wmp. I'm just going to forget it and next time d/l a file thats either in 4:3 or is a true 16:9 (btw- how can I tell?) Thanks for your help- Aaron

[Goring]

NO!!!! My god!!!! IT really IS 16:9- I went to its file properties and previewed it, and sure enough NO BLACK BANDS!!!!!!! So, now I am determined, how should I encode this bad boy so that it will play normally on my 16:9 TV?

[Goring]

Come to think of it, this would be a good idea for a guide- how to encode and burn a (S)(k)(c)(x)VCD for a 16:9 television for movie files in both 16:9 format and 4:3 format. Thanks- aaron

[mh2360]

I am looking for a similar thing, take a normal 640 x 352 (or whatever) Divx, but convert it to anamorphic, i mean, encode it so as to stretch it vertically. As far as i have worked out, you have to vertically stretch the picture by 25%, i cant seem to work out how to do this in tmpgenc...

[mh2360]

OK, I found out i could re-size the AVI in virtualdub, using the re-size filter, then frame-serve to Tmpgenc. This gives good results, but i would prefer to do this from within Tmpgenc...