Anamorphic DVD to SVCD

[Jeff Kelly]

loveo Folks,

I ve been searching for quite a while now and still haven't found the answer to my Questions.

1. Many DVDs are anamorphic which means that the Picture is stretched from 16:9 to 4:3 to keep more of the Picture Information. That is why you can see Eggheads when you watch the ripped VOBs on PC. But when I'm watching it on my 4:3 TV there are no Eggheads which must mean that something is fixing the Picture. I think that the DVD Player does the corrections. Am I right ?

2. Do I need to manually correct the anamorphic Picture when transcoding it to a SVCD or does the SVCD support anamorphic Material so that it is converted automagically when played in an SVCD or DVD Player?

Regards

Jeff

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Jeff Kelly on 2001-08-29 11:43:57 ]</font>

[AntnyMD]

I know of no SVCD authoring software that properly supports anamorphic video. You will have to re-encode your anamorphic films to letterboxed 4:3 aspect.

If you want to keep your MPEGs anamorphic in hopes of encoding them to DVD in the future, just burn the MPEGs as data ... but you won't get them to play in anything but an Apex or other machine that lets you play MPEG files from data CDs ... but my large guess is they won't be anamorphic that way, either.

You'd think with the world progressively switching their standard TV aspect from 4:3 to 16:9 these software companies would like to join us in the 21st century.

[xzarkad]

Hi there,

yes you can convert anamorphic DVD to SVCD or VCD.
Just choose (in TMPGEnc) your source as 1:1 and select "full screen: keep aspect ratio"
(this you can find under settings ==> advanced )
TMPGEnc will stretch the image vertically, just as the original DVD was.
If you play the SVCD in a 16:9 Tv set, the TV will stretch automatically the movie vertically; they always do. Ergo: the SVCD looks exactly as it was meant to be on the original DVD. This will not work on a 4:3 TV set, then you will end up with those eggheads...........

[xzarkad]

hum...sorry...made a mistake....

I mean: the 16:9 TV set will stretch the movie horizontally.

[Jeff Kelly]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-08-29 13:25:52, xzarkad wrote:
Hi there,

yes you can convert anamorphic DVD to SVCD or VCD.
Just choose (in TMPGEnc) your source as 1:1 and select "full screen: keep aspect ratio"
(this you can find under settings ==> advanced )
TMPGEnc will stretch the image vertically, just as the original DVD was.
If you play the SVCD in a 16:9 Tv set, the TV will stretch automatically the movie vertically; they always do. Ergo: the SVCD looks exactly as it was meant to be on the original DVD. This will not work on a 4:3 TV set, then you will end up with those eggheads...........
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

Actually I have a 4:3 TV set and do not want these Eggheads

But I'm confused. None of the Guides i have read take anamorphic Material into account.

So what should I do in order to view them on an 4:3 Tv without the Eggheads? Which Settings do I have to take in TMPegEnc or DVD2AVI ?

Regards Jeff

[AntnyMD]

Since you have a 4:3 TV you'll have to encode as letterboxed. Period.


xsarkad:
I didnt address the 16:9 television option as you did, because Jeff Kelly said he had a 4:3 television.


I;m actually tempted to plunk down the US$2000 for one of those 16:9 TVs all over my local Circuit City at the moment.

[V49]

They don't? love!

Wish you'd told me before I made lots of anamorphic SVCDs... now I know they don't work I'll have to stop watching them....

I just encoded the video as 16:9 in tmpeg, muxed with bbmpeg and authored with VCDimager... works fine with my stand-alone on a 4:3 TV and on a 16:9 TV.

Some players don't support anamorphic SVCDs though... I suspect it's an abuse of the standard, but how many people follow the standard properly? (ie how many people bother to make the video interlaced? progressive video wasn't part of the SVCD standard last time I looked... )

-V49-

[ktnwin]

"Actually I have a 4:3 TV set and do not want these Eggheads
But I'm confused. None of the Guides i have read take anamorphic Material into account.
So what should I do in order to view them on an 4:3 Tv without the Eggheads? Which Settings do I have to take in TMPegEnc or DVD2AVI ? "

Answer: pretty easy. In TMPGenc Advanced Settings, select source ratio to be 16:9 and output ratio "keep aspect ratio". This way, TMPGEnc will squeeze the picture in the vertical direction. The resulting MPEG file is still 480x480 (for SVCD) but the picture area is only 480x360 (I believe). There will be black borders on top and bottom. This effectively cause the DVD player to show the movie at 16:9 ratio (wide screen).

[nsdn]

hmmmm i have been wrestling with the same problems...aspect ratios....are extremely complex.....i never expected there to be differant friggin pixel shapes....

Anyway....I will try and share a little with what i think i know

If ur using tmpge to encode...set your iput to 16:9 (for anamorphic) set your encode to 4:3 and the resulting mpeg will be converted to roughly 16:9...it seems to keep the correct aspect ratios...and does not produce egg heads....for 16:9 in.....set the out to 4:3 and u will get full screen. The real Key in Tmpge is...."Keep aspect ratio" which I now believe refers to the PIXEL aspect ratio...not to the overall aspect ratio of the picture...if u get my drift..so it seems when Tmpge resizes it does the croping and stuff for u so the pixel shapes are unchanged.

This was fine for TMPGE until i started using dvd2svcd which uses CCE for the encode engine....which i might add produces a far better stream when u use multi pass VBR...I will refer u to a post that details how u do correct resizing using avisynth.....not however I have only ever been able to successfully convert 2.35:1 to 16:9 using the script i stole from the doom forum....

so now if its in 16:9 it stays that way (cuz i am a cce convert)...if i have a movie in 2.35:1 i convert it to 16:9 and one day i will get myself a wide screen telli...

http://www.vcdhelp.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?topic=43031&forum=3

and included here for completness credit goes to Frank fromthe doom forum:

Resizing 2.35 films to 16:9
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.35:1 movies only use 50% of the display area.
For better viewing on television it's better to crop and resize to 2:1 or 16:9 format.

Today some examples for enlarging 2.35:1 to 16:9 aspect ratio.

1. Cropping
vertical
PAL: y1 = 3/4 * 576 = 432 -> y2 = 576
NTSC: y1 = 3/4 * 480 = 360 -> y2 = 480

increasing factor k = y2/y1 = 4/3 for PAL and NTSC

horizontal
x1 = x2/k = 720 * 3/4 = 540 -> x2 = 720
crop x2 - x1 = 720 - 540 = 180

2. Resizing
PAL:
x = 540 -> 720 (2/3 * 720 = 480 for SVCD)
y = 576 unchanged
NTSC:
x = 540 -> 720 (2/3 * 720 = 480 for SVCD)
y = 480 unchanged

Pixel aspect ratio is fully unchanged!


AviSynth Scripts enlarging 2.35 to 16:9
----------------------------------------
ATTENTION: Telecine (NTSC) and deinterlacing problems
are not discussed.
Basicly you have to deinterlace BEFORE resizing!

# SVCD PAL
Crop(90,0,540,576).BicubicResize(480,576)
# or a bit faster, because less pixels have to resize
Crop(90,72,540,432).BicubicResize(480,432).AddBord ers(0,72,0,72)

# SVCD NTSC
Crop(90,0,540,480).BicubicResize(480,480)
# or a bit faster, because less pixels have to resize
Crop(90,60,540,360).BicubicResize(480,360).AddBord ers(0,60,0,60)

# DIVX PAL
# SAR = 54/59, cropped x = 704
Crop(96,72,528,432)
BicubicResize(512,28

# DIVX NTSC
# SAR = 11/10, cropped x = 704
Crop(96,60,528,360)
BicubicResize(512,28








<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: nsdn on 2001-08-30 22:54:26 ]</font>