Confused by aspect ratios?

[phil_n]

I have an mkv file from a vhs capture in OBS. Anywhere I check it says 16x9. Handbrake is saying 852x480 storage, 852x480 display, 1:1 Pixel Aspect Ratio, 15.97:9 Display Aspect Ratio; but anything that it is viewed in - Handbrake, VLC, Kdenlive - it looks more like a square box.

Any idea how I can make it can display everywhere at 16x9? Re-encode?

TIA - phil_n

[lordsmurf]

Wait, let's back up a second here...

First off ... <sigh> ... why do people capture VHS to the wrong format (H.264), in the wrong container (MKV), with the wrong program (OBS). I just do not understand this. I can only guess folks have been led astray by others that equally have no idea how to properly capture analog videotapes. H.264 is a delivery/final format, not capture format. OBS is primarily a streaming capture tool, with analog being a (semi-functional) afterthought feature.

We capture VHS in VirtualDub to Huffyuv for a reason.

Handbrake is awful when it comes to aspect ratios, probably literally the single worst problem it has. The software is really stupid when it comes to AR, both in reading the source files, and especially on a resize. It's equally quite terrible at framerates. It was, and still is, primarily a program used to convert a disc (DVD/Blu-ray) to MKV/MP4.

So the underlying problem here is with the entire method, and choice of software. The AR is fubar because the method/software is fubar.

[phil_n]

Thanks for the reply Mr Smurf. I can appreciate your exasperation as a professional, and total lack of offense or vulgarity in your comment, but the answer, in my case, to your initial question is that I only have seven tapes to do - I can't afford to send them out or buy more equipment and I'm not that concerned about overall quality as long as it's at least watchable once or twice.

As for my current situation I think what I've managed to do is capture a 4:3 video into a 16:9 frame and what I thought was a lack of display in the various programs I tried to view it in was actually black 'filler' being displayed between the 4:3 video size (inside the 16:9 frame) and the 16:9 display size. Does that make any sense?

As a quick and dirty hack I'm going to try running it through some software and crop off the black so all that's left is the 4:3 and see what happens.

[phil_n]

Also....I just can't get virtualdub to work for me (maybe the easycap?). I've tried every version I could find - yours with the added filters, an older version, the latest version, the "2" version that someone put together - the best I could manage was that almost good capture but with the stuttering. And...it crashes on my machine - instant BSOD's just for clicking on a button. And it doesn't run on linux.