I just encoded and burned Super Troopers with x3, and the output is definitely being stretched horizontally

I kept all the settings in the template standard, except for color correction and NR filters (boy, I'll never do that agin - 36 hours to encode one movie). The playback is fine on the PC. In windows media player, the video plays with black bars on the top and bottom (as it should be), and the sides. I understand this isn't a problem for DVD, but I wonder why the video looks stretched wide... all the threads I've read on this subject (aspect ratio) complain of vertical stretching...

Could it be my DVD player?

Sounds like Super Troopers might be 4:3 and not 16:9... possibly? Try changing the output aspect ratio, which defaults to 16:9, to 4:3. If you encode full screen video with 16:9 as the aspect, you get "stretched" video. If you encode anamorphic/widescreen video with 4:3 as the aspect, you get squeezed video.

If I end up being completely wrong, sorry. I've been up for 40 some hours. Weeeeeee.

Thanks, Markums2k, but I'm almost positive I encoded at 4:3. Oh well, I'm most of the way throught 'The Others,' I'll try it out. That I KNOW is 4:3.

P.S. Get some sleep, man! Staying up like that is bad for you!

Oh, on another note, I took the discs to work, and tried them using a software DVD player. Aspect ratio on a standard window looked fine, but maximized to full screen, it stretched again!!



The aspect ratio I'm most concerned with is my personal ratio between trial and error! It's edging closer to 1:1 than I'd like!!

Hmmmmm. Are you also keeping the display method as "full screen"? I was almost certain you'd just have to switch that aspect ratio...

You win some, you lose some. In the case of video encoding-- ahhh, don't even get me started...

So true, so true...

And to answer your previous question, yep, I selected 'full screen (keep aspect ratio.' Could my source file be screwy somehow? It's a Divx .avi, but playback seemed problem free.

Use FitCD .

I've always used just plain "full screen" with Kwag's templates. You may want to try one of the "center" options, as opposed to "full screen (keep aspect)". I was gonna advise that you try the regular full screen option, but that may not be the way to go if the source file is some non-standard resolution.

Like I said, I've always kept it at "full screen", but all my source files have either been DVD rips or captures from my Pinnacle card (720x480). The only setting I have had to alter is the aspect ratio, depending on whether the source was widescreen or fullscreen.

SansGrip, I d/l'ed FitCD just now. It's like facing a mixing board for the first time. Scary!!! I also downloaded your kick-butt filters, but I'm at a loss for a way to effectively implement them. A little background on this program might help. Does it modify the source, and ready it for encoding by Tempgenc? Does it perform correction on already encoded mpegs for optimum results? Does it fry my lowly brain with buttons and settings? I already know the answer to the last question....

It is, but after you do it once it's easy . Basically ignore anything on the top half of the window. We don't use it. What you need to concentrate on is the section headed "MPEG Resizing".

The first thing you should do is use VirtualDub (Video->Filters->Add->Null Transform->Cropping) or TMPGEnc (Setting->Advanced->Clip Frame) to figure out how big your movie's borders are. Make a note of the size of the left, top, right and bottom borders.

Hit the "Source" button and find your .d2v or .avi. FitCD should detect a bunch of things from the source, most importantly frame size. Now subtract the size of the left and right borders from the frame width, and the top and bottom borders from the height. Enter these two values in the first two "Film pixel" boxes in FitCD. Enter the left and top border sizes in the next two boxes.

FitCD now knows how big the total frame is, and exactly how much of it is not borders. In the drop-down list to the right of where it says "Crop", select "Average". The two sliders right below the cropping figures should be set to 4. Moving down, the slider underneath where it says "Resize" should be "16 = block optimized".

Uncheck "optimize for CCE", select either 1 or 2 blocks of TV overscan depending on your TV, uncheck "Format conversion" and "Anamorphic" (the one at the bottom of the "MPEG Resizing" section, not the top).

Now select your destination frame size, either "VCD" for 352x240, "1/2 DVD" for 352x480, "3/4 DVD small" for 528x480 or "XVCD" for 704x480.

At this point, next to where it says "Crop", you'll see what figures you should use to crop the movie, and where it says "Resize" are the frame size dimensions you should use when resizing.

That's as far as I go with FitCD -- I don't use the Avisynth script generation part of it. Hopefully someone else will step in and cover that part for you .

Woohah!! Thanks Sansgrip!

"If it's stupid but it works, it's not stupid."

That pretty much sums up how I solved this one...
It stands to reason that my .avi is being stretched horizontally due to the source aspect ratio, right? So I just went into 'settings>advanced in Tempgenc, and changed my source aspect ratio to 16:9 from 1:1, thereby artificially stretching it taller, and set my output aspect ratio to full screen (without 'keep aspect ratio').
It worked perfectly

Not only that, but the lack of black borders in WinDVD leads me to think it will work in a 16:9 TV as well!!

My aspect ratio is back to normal. Go figure...

Now to slay the gigantic beast known as Avisynth!!