New Aspect Ratio?

[rayn]

Hi Dan

Is there any chance of an Aspect Ratio of 14:9 being added to the Options when Saving?

The reason being I have a widescreen TV that either shows the movie in 4:3 (too small) or 16:9 (too stretched).

I usually have to encode movies twice (if the original broadcast was in 4:3) to get the 14:9 aspect ratio.

This gives the movie a small black stripe down each side and is perfect.

If this option was available in VRD it would br great.

Thanks.

 

[Danr]

How to do even encode to 14:9. My MPEG2 docs only show the following allowable aspect ratios:

1:1
4:3
16:9
2.21:1

 

[rayn]

Perhaps 'encode' was the wrong word, sorry.

I convert the original 4:3 show into avi using mpeg mediator to 'squash' the picture, then convert the squashed picture back into mpeg.

So the finished picture is actually still 4:3 but with thin black stripes down each side.

 

[Danr]

I don't think we can do this. We are only able to change the MPEG headers to the allowable aspect ratio. You might want to search this message board for "Pan and Scan". There have been a couple of threads on how to author DVDs with P&S. The P&S feature in some authoring programs might be able to accomplish what you want.

But, I'm still in the dark of why you would want anything other than 4:3 or 16:9. Any other aspect ratio is going to alter the original picture.

 

[Anonymous]

It's to fill more of the screen with the picture, as at the moment 4:3 just fills approx. 50-60% in the middle of the (widescreen) TV, whereas Wide or Smart mode stretches the picture annoyingly.

I'll have a search for Pan & Scan -I play the movies through the Media MVP and it doesn't have a Pan & Scan capability so I have to widen 4:3 movies slightly using the method I described.

Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[Danr]

Pan & Scan only seems to be support by DVD players when outputting to a 4:3 monitor.

 

[phd]

Have a look at Mediostream's Xtream. It is rather quick at reencoding and does P&S and widescreen conversions. Also will do cutom settings. Don't know whether it will do all you want. Free trial that watermarks output.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the recommendation, phd.

I've given Xtream a go and, while it is a very good program, it still hasn't got the settings I'm looking for.

TMPGEnc is the closest I've used (being able to resize the window exactly) but it takes forever to reencode mpeg2.

Thanks again.