16:9 Widescreen SVCD

[whopp]

Hi,

How can I make a SVCD with a 16:9 anamorphic widescreen
video stream? I've done whats right in tmpeg.
I enocde the file with source 16:9 and destination 16:9
which works fine until I author in iauthor and try to
play it on a standalone dvd player..
It plays it as 4:3 even tho its 16:9 which obviously
looks weird. Are there a way you can alter the mpeg
stream so that it will signalize to the tv that "hey, this is anamorphic widescreen..play me like this pls". Any hints would be greatly appreciated.

Thanx

[AntnyMD]

As far as I know, no known SVCD player supports the anamorphic flag in your 16:9 SVCD. The only software player I know of that will support your 16:9 SVCD program stream is PowerDVD, but PowerDVD does not recognize the SVCD file structure on CD. You'll have to browse the files on your SVCD with PowerDVD and play back the MPEG in the MPEG2 folder.

[whopp]

But,

Shouldnt all hardware players obey the widescreen signaling system? And, how can you signalize this through the mpeg stream?

[Psycho_Dad_Rules]

Hi,

Well, this can easily be fixed..... get a widescreen TV
I have one, and whenever i play a 16:9 Anamorph i just change the TV setting to stretch the screen to 16:9 and voilá everything looks fine again.

Greetz,

pSyChO dAd

[AntnyMD]

whopp:
Not when it comes to SVCD. As most standalone DVD players only really expect to see DVD's, when you pop in an SVCD, it assumes the program stream is 4:3 aspect, regardless of any anamorphic flags in your program stream.

These "flags" are inserted by virtue of you telling your encoder, TMPGEnc in this case, that your output video is 16:9 aspect. Psycho_Dad_Rules has a point, though: if you play this SVCD back on a 16:9 television *and* tell it to stretch the image, you'll be good to go. However, your DVD player won't automatically signal the stretching (initiated by the "flags&quot, nor will it automatically letterbox the 16:9 image on a 4:3 television the way DVD does.

I'll bet you the reason why you dont get automatic letterboxing on a 4:3 television with SVCD is that the DVD spec was purposely written to exclude any of the SVCD specs ... notice how you can have (all NTSC) 352x240, 352x480, 704x480 and 720x480 video on a DVD, but not 480x480 which is the SVCD standard!

[whopp]

Psycho_Dad_Rules: I have a projector. I can tune the aspect ratio anyway I want it...but, it still doesnt make it *right*. you know?

AntnyMD, so.. okay..basically what you are saying is that
Philips (being evil). Decided to make svcd ignore the flags
and therefore make svcd a less desireable product and
make people buy dvd's.. evil plot ;P
For my own amusement though, I have contacted philips and
are working on to figure out what a compliant svcd
player *should* do.

Has anyone done significant experimentation on this (and failed miserably?)

[smchgait]

Hi,

I always encode SVCDs in 4:3 as many movies are not
real 16:9 (1,77777:1). Many movies are 1,68:1 or 1,9:1 etc.
If I encode those movies in 16:9, they will be distorted.
I have a 16:9 TV with which I can zoom to 16:9.
Then I have no distortions.

[whopp]

Smichgait,

I believe this to be partly true.
As far as i know are there NO other formats
for dvd than 16:9 or 4:3. F.ex a 2.35:1 film is
actually a 16:9 letterboxed to 2.35:1.
so, when I encode this onto a anamorphic widescreen 16:9
it encodes a already letterboxed 16:9 stream into another 16:9 stream. All other formats are virtual.
if i'm wrong on this please do correct me.

[AntnyMD]

I tried a 2.35:1 aspect clip into a basic VBR MPEG2 16:9 stream just to see what I got. I clipped out the letterboxing in the DVD's 16:9 encode, and used TMPGEnc to adjust the size and shape of my new encode. It looked ok. I guess my advice here is to use that Preview option before you let it go off on a long encode.