When encoding avi's using MainConcept, how is the aspect ratio set to 16.9 so that the black bars appear. Thanks
What do you mean?? If you want a 16:9 aspect ratio you set the Aspect ratio to 16:9 and encode...Simple??
When 16.9 is selected, the encoded file is in 4.3 and the figures are stretched to fill the space unless the file is truly 4.3, which it rarely is. As I read here somewhere,even Danny DeVito is taller and thinner. If the file were encoded to true 16.9 with the black bars, I assumed that things would not be stretched. I know where the setting is in TMPGEnc but not MC. Currently messing with "Crop and Scale" in MC to see what it causes. Thanks
Well if your Source File is an AVI file then it has No Aspect ratio because AVI files are Displayed useing there Resolution not aspect ratio...All AVI files have a 1:1 Aspect ratio(Which is the same as No Aspect ratio) which means they allways have Square PiXels.... A Mpeg-2 file is displayed useing it"s Aspect ratio and it"s resolution is only used so the DVD Player Knows how many Pixels it has to display useing it"s aspect ratio..... This is why you should "Never" Preview your Mpeg-2 files useing Media Player as Media Player allways Ignores aspect ratio flags so you will Never get a True representation of how your DVD will Look if you use Media Player to Preview... You should Allways use a Software DVD player Like PowerDVD or WinDVD to Preview Mpeg-2/DVD files because they will properly Display the Video useing it"s aspect ratio and not it"s resolution.... If you have a Movie file that looks to you Like it is Widescreen format (Without the Black bars on top and Bottom) and you want it to Look Widescreen when you watch it on your Standard TV Set then you might have to use a Different Encoder because the MainConcept encoder doesn"t have very many resizeing settings and will Generally Stretch the Image out when resizeing to a Higher Resolution and I just tested it on a File were it did exactly that and Made the Image Look Tall and Stretched out...... If you don"t want the Stretched out Look and would rather have Black Bars on top and Bottom then I can explain to you how to encode it that way but not useing MainConcept (Unless you know how to Frameserve with AVISynth) but I can explain it to you useing "Tmpgenc pluss" if you want but I will have to know the Resolution of your Source AVI file so I can calculate the Proper Resolution when resized to DVD resolution without haveing it look Stretched out..... Cheers
Thanks for the reply. I was hoping to use MC for this; TMPGEnc Plus can do it but takes 4-5x as long. I also trialled Procoder but it's just as slow as TMPGEnc for me. Actually, I don't prefer the Widescreen look but if that solved the stretched look; good enough. Still experimenting with "Copy and Scale" in MC but that seems to be messing with my Bitrate values (I may have messed up, though). I have no idea on Avisynth or Frameserving but will check it out. BTW, I always preview files in Nero Showtime and WMP Classic and never use WMP (regular). Thanks again.
To those with MC, here is what seems to be a solution I found: download and open the calculator at www.tomzavodny.cz/program/bitcalc/index_en.php, input your source resolution [at right], select target resolution [ntsc/pal 720 by 480/576], this will give you a resize resolution to enter in MC's "crop and scale", untick "keep proportions" and encode as 4.3. Odd that an encoder with this price has this issue. Also,I found that you can also make your own letterboxing by unticking "keep proportions" and adjust the heigth and encode as 16.9. I have only tried this once, so don't know if this always works. Both methods decrease Bitrate by about 20-25%, so check with the builtin calculator in MC before encoding.
