Preserve aspect ratio with Rempg2?

[Bel]

Okay, this is what I have been doing. Due to the cost of DVD+R's, I've been ripping dvds, reconverting with tmpgenc, and authoring 2 movies on one dvd with spruceup. The results are pretty good, although some pixelization does occur during periods of high action due to the low bit rate.

I began experimenting with Rempg2, and it looks as though the results are better then a full reencoding through tmpgenc, plus it finishes in a third of the time. My problem is, I can't seem to preserve the 16:9 aspect ratio. I switch the resolution to the same as my source 720x480, adjust the scale factor, and then hit encode.

The thing is though, I'm not really sure my source was in 16:9. Which I no longer have access to the source and I do not remember if it was letterboxed when played on my player. After using Smartripper to demux the streams, dvd2avi tells me that the aspect ration is 16:9. Mind you, the demuxed streams to not appear to be letterboxed, and thus not 16:9. Does dvd2avi always say 16:9 or does it give the "correct" aspect ratio. When I reencode with tmpenc, I would put the 16:9 aspect ratio in the settings and it would reencode properly. However, with remmpg I can't seem to do that, and it looks the same as the demuxed video that smartripper gave me. Which I think it in an improper ratio, but I'm not sure. I'm going to pay more attention for the next dvd I do, but if anyone understands what the hell I'm talking about, I could appreciate some assistance. Thanks.

[bartman]

Spruce up does not support 16:9 movies...It will change it all to 4:3

HOWEVER, the aspect ratio is simply a flag in the ifo file.....so run ifoedit (find it on the tools page), open the VTS_01_0.IFO file ald look for the menu attributes and title set attributes. double click the "Video:" line and change the aspect ratio to 16:9. That should fix your probs...(It does for me)

[Bel]

Thanks for the response, although the dvd may not natively be in 16:9 it alwayse seemed as though the aspect ratio stayed the same. Frankly, I don't really care if it is natively in 4:3 or 16:9 as I don't have a high def tv in that format. Although, I might some day so I am going to start modifying the IFO's when I use Spruce. On a 16:9 TV, I assume a 16:9 disc will appear without any letterbox lines, and a 4:3 disc with a 16:9 movie on it would still have the letterbox lines and make it look even more distorted, correct? On a side note, I assume that DVDMaestro will accept 16:9?

However, the Spruce part really doesn't answer my question because with the rempeg2 file I'm talking about how it looks on my computer, before it was authored. Using my Tmpgenc method, the movie was letterboxed and to me looked proper (again, don't have the original anymore so I don't know if it was originally letterboxed. It was V the mini-series if anyone knows. ) Using Rempeg looked enlarged and stretched, and I think it was not supposed to be that way. Now my rip from smartripper, looks the same as the rempeg one. But that is before frameserving with dvd2avi, and then reconverting with the 16:9 aspect ratio in tmpgenc.

I don't know, at this point I may be incoherent. But if someone knows what I'm talking about, feel free to explain it to me.

[bartman]

Most DVD's, regardless of AR, are encoded at 720x480/576. This is your standard 4:3 ratio. With a 16:9 or widescreen presentation, the video is still encoded at 720x480/576 but will be streached out when played back on your TV. If you have a widescreen TV it will fill the screen, if you have a normal 4:3 TV your DVD player will add in the letterbox bands. Some cheaper DVD's cheat and encode the bands as well ( mostly your pirate stuff from asia )......

Anyway...to the point....if you play one of the properly encoded 16:9 AR mpeg's through media player, it will display it as 4:3....everything will look squished up....when you pipe it through TMPGEnc it will look normal but you will actually be encoding the letterbox bands as well (just like the cheap pirate copies I mentioned above). You can encode the "squished up" video in tmpgenc and set the 16:9 flag using ifoedit and your dvd player (standalone or software) will display it correctly.

[Bel]

Great. Thanks for the info. I think I understand. I'm gonna give it a whirl and let you know how it works. In other words, for it to be "proper" it should look bad through media player.

On a side note, if I wanted to stick with Tmpgenc to do my shrinking. Would I be better off (for it to look best on all tv's) to set the source aspect ration at 1:1 and change the ratio with IFO edit?

Once again, thanks a bunch for the help.

[bartman]

As long as the final video resolution is valid...I tend to not let TMPGEnc change anything AR wise unless I'm making VCD's.

A good analogy would be to get an image, say 1200x480 and re-size it in paint shop pro to 640x480. You can do it two ways...one is to "squish" it i.e. NOT maintain AR...the other is to "shrink" it until it fits. The first way will fill the full 640x480 but will look weird...the other will look right but will not utalise every pixel....there will be a gap at the top and the bottom (letterboxing)....hope this makes sense.

[Bel]

Thanks Bartman for all your help. Well, I ran two trial runs. First, changed the tag to 16:9 burned it and it looked the same as it did on the computer. The next time, I checked the Automatic Letterbox button and it worked perfectly. Now, by checking that letterbox button will it still be viewed without the bands on a 16:9 tv?

Also, off the dvd ripping topic... If I convert an AVI or SVCD with a different resolution (say 480x480) to 720x480 dvd compliant mpeg2, would you still choose a 1:1 aspect ratio, or would you choose to preserve the aspect ratio? I understand what you're saying about the picture in your example, but if you start at 480x480 and suddendly convert to 720x480 with a 1:1 ratio, then shouldn't your video be stretch horizontally?

Again, many thanks with solving my original problem.

[bartman]

if you are going from SVCD to DVD you don't want to preserve the AR since SVCD is squished and you don't want that in your final....

As for the widescreen question...all I can say is that if it looks squished in media player but looks right on a 4:3 TV....it should look right on a 16:9 TV with no bars....best way to check though is to take your disk to your local Hi-Fi store and test it on one of their TV's....