Can anyone help?

I have encoded plenty of films using TMPGEnc and never encountered this before.

I am trying to encode a rental version of Scary Movie 2. The film reports 16:9 ratio in DVD2AVI ( as it should). When I encode this film using TMPGEnc the picture looks stretched vertically.

I can't understand this and am having problem trying to output the correct ratio?

I have tried all the settings in the settings, advanced, ratio part to no avail.

I have now tried to correct it myself using the ratio set to 16:9 and the video arrange section set to center (custom size) and then altered then display to 720 X 420. This looks correct in the Clip frame preview window. I am sure this cannot be the correct way to do it! Is there any way you can tell what this setting should be or has anyone else come up against this problem and know the solution??

Thanks in advance

Daz

Ok, that stretched picture on your screen is the way 16:9 video looks like when recorded to tape. This is called Anamorphic recording. Another variation is the "cropped" 16:9, which in fact is a 720 x 480 with black stripes actually burned into the picture. So when you see the movie it really is 720 x 200 pixels aprox.
The Anamorphic recording actually INCREASES the resolution by not having the two black stripes on the video, but a full film frame which, when played back, is being resized by your player's circuitry. This gives you actually almost double the resolution. When viewed on a proper monitor, you will really see the difference.
You can safely take this streched mpeg video stream into a professional DVD authoring system and author it as 16:9 and will play back just ok.

__________________
Sadly, I discovered there is no future.
Because the future was yesterday. And yesterday has gone.

This is not answering my question though is it?

I want to convert this to MPEG-1. Not author it for DVD!!

I dont understand why I havent had this with other DVDs. Are you saying out of the 20 or so I have converted to VCD that this is the only one I have picked that is anormorphic. I doubt it!?

Please can someone tell me how to correct this please in VCD. How do I convert this to MPEG-1 and attain the correct ratio when played back on a standalone?

Is it just me or do you always have to ask a question twice on these forums before you get an answer that vaguely helps you out!?

Sorry don't mean to be negative but numerous times I post a question I get half an answer back because my question hasn't been read fully!

Maybe it's me and my crap explanation!?!?

Daz

Well, this may or may not help you, but whenever I have encoded a movie, regardless of source type or AR, and use Kwag's original KVCD template (352x480), it ALWAYS looks stretched vertically in the TMPGenc preview window. The DVD player (software or settop, with the exception of Wondoze Media Player), automagically formats the picture correctly during playback. Whenever I needed to change the template to encode at 352x240 (to get a smaller file size), it appears formatted correctly in the TMPGenc preview window.

352 by 240 will look much more natural than 352 by 480,Can you imagine going to a movie and haveing the movie screen higher than it is wide? Would sort of look goofy ?Especially when the extra resolution you get on top and bottom by the extra resolution is usually the part you don"t want like the black bars,That is the effect i get when useing the 352 by 480 template,I would advise you to use resolutions that are uniform to the source resolution, like a 720 by 480 source encoded to a 352 by 240 or 720 by 480 mpeg, but most players seem to like 704 as opposed to 720 for vcd/svcd horizontal resolution..

__________________
May The Force Be With You!!!!!!

Actually, this is the way it *must* look in the TMPEGenc preview! Your player will squeeze the vertical dimension in half when playing back. I always make sure that I have a tall image when previewing (set aspect ratios to whatever makes that happen). If you try to make the picture look "right" by having black bars at the top and bottom, your player will also have those, but it will be squished to half size in the vertical.
The playback on the computer doesn't look right (at least ATI file player), but is good on standalone DVD player. I haven't tried actually playing the burned VCD on PC, so not sure what different players do with the 352x480 size.

Geoff

I know on my player 352 by 480 looks like your only watching maybe the middle 50% of the movie (when the source is 720 by 480)and you can see more vertical resolution than horizontal resolution....

__________________
May The Force Be With You!!!!!!

Jeez this is really hard work!!!!!!!!

Can anyone please answer my QUESTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Please ignore the fact of what template I am using!!!!! Be it Kwags or be it normal VCD template!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My picture looks vertically stretched whichever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE someone read my original post and give me a helpful answer! Is it so hard?? This cannot be so hard to answer surely!!!!!!

I can't believe how you can ask something and get replies that go off on a tangent!!!!!

HELP!?!?!!?!?!?

Daz

Jeez buddy, take it easy. You seem to be assuming that people on this forum OWE you an answer. Lighten up. This is hardly the case, especially since you provide no details whatsoever of your encoding scenario. Are you using the DVD2AVI produced .d2v file as your input to TMPGenc? Are you using avisynth to feed to TMPGenc? what are the specifications in the template you are using? All of these things may effect your problem.

No I don't think people OWE me an answer at all. I am just amazed nobody knows the answer!! It's hardly rocket science.

I have used DVD2AVI and I feed the project file into TMPEng. I don't use AVISynth as I have yet to find out the advantage to using it (although I did try it in this instance once because I read it can auto matically set the right ratio! Except in this case!). It is a PAL film. The template makes no difference whatsoever, whether I use a normal VCD template, an SVCD template or Kwag's or Sefy's template. They all produce the same stretched results. There must be some sort of correction I have done except for the outlined one. Come on people you must know the answer.

Very frustrasting,

I think I'll just give up!!

Daz

Calm down, man!
If it's hardly rocket science, then you should have thought of the answer yourself!
Now, the reason you're having problems with this is because DVD2AVI outputs anamorphic AR into 4:3 automatically! If you want it to look normal on your tv screen, you're going to have to resize it thru TMPGEnc using the center (custom size) setting.
For example: an anamorphic display of 1.75:1 on a 352x240 display will keep its original look (complete with black bars) on a setting of 352x200. If its being used on a 352x480 display, resize it to 352x400. You can experiment with this if you AR is different.
As a side note, this forum is for a POLITE exchange of information! If you really want people to help you out, be nice. You're not going to get answers by badgering or insulting people.
Be kind, dude!

crop the black borders and resize to the following pixels including a 16 pixel non-visible area. i think your movie is stored in anamorphic cinemascope.

PAL 4:3 -> 336 x 272
PAL 16:9 -> 336 x 216
35mm Widescreen 1,85:1 -> 336 x 208
70mm Widescreen 2,2:1 -> 336 x 176
35mm Cinemascope 2,35:1 -> 336 x 160

To encode a PAL anamorphic picture with the Kwag 352x576 template (the original ones) use DAR 16:9 and Picture Custom Size of 352x432. This will give perfect conversions of your 720x576 anamorphic originals!

Hey Joshi,

Do you have the same info for NTSC ??? Or anyone else ?

Thanks

DazJWood,

Have you figured it out how to set the AR correctly to get 16:9 like you wanted? I'm in the same boat, this "playing combination settings" thing is driving me crazy!!!!!

I have posted on another forum about ripping and encoding Snatch using SmartRipper, DVD2AVI and TMPGEnc, I finally got it right and excitingly posted my "theory", and boy was I wrong! I think I just happen to stumble on the correct combination when using KVCD 352x480(NTSC) template, because when I try to re-encode again using KVCDx2 1-CD 704x480(NTSC) template just to compare the quality, my "theory" doesn't work!!! I got Full height (stretched) screen again and couldn't get 16:9 to appear!!

I read through all the feedbacks and I'm like you - still don't have a grasp of a straight forward setting method. Like you've said, there've got to be rules for setting up from different video sources to get different results. For instance, all I want to know is (assuming all sources are from DVD using SmartRipper & DVD2AVI):

If the original DVD is 16:9 Widescreen format and to get to MPEG-1 VCD keeping the 16:9 format:

a). using 352x240 the settings should be:
Video: Aspect Ratio: _________
Advanced: Source Aspect Ratio: ________, Video arrange Method: ______

b). using 352x480 the settings should be:
Video: Aspect Ratio: _________
Advanced: Source Aspect Ratio: ________, Video arrange Method: ______

c.) using 704x480 the settings should be:
Video: Aspect Ratio: _________
Advanced: Source Aspect Ratio: ________, Video arrange Method: ______

Changing to Full Screen :

a). using 352x240 the settings should be:
Video: Aspect Ratio: _________
Advanced: Source Aspect Ratio: ________, Video arrange Method: ______

b). using 352x480 the settings should be:
Video: Aspect Ratio: _________
Advanced: Source Aspect Ratio: ________, Video arrange Method: ______

c.) using 704x480 the settings should be:
Video: Aspect Ratio: _________
Advanced: Source Aspect Ratio: ________, Video arrange Method: ______

On the other hand, if the DVD is in FULL Screen (Formatted to fit your screen), will you be able to encode it to become 16:9 format? and by using the settings........?

So forth and so on..., am I asking what you were asking before? The key is to set those four settings, Size, Aspect Ratio, Source Aspect Ratio, and Video arrange Method, correctly to get what you want! And I wish someone could come up with a chart so we can follow. If you have found out how to master the settings I would appreciate if you could share with me, and many others out there as well. Or, anybody out there who could come up with a chart that will fill in those blanks.