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Strange Aspect Ratio Problem

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Hello All,

I had someone give me HD video on a DVD. I had to convert the video files from the DVD using FFMpegX so I could work with this video on Final Cut Express. The original files were mpeg 2 files at 720x576 resolution. I asked FFMpegX to convert the files to DV at the same resolution. What I got instead was video at 720x480 resolution. FCE could work with this new file just fine. I kept my settings for FCE at 16:9 aspect ratio so the video would stay "wide screen", and it displayed wide screen just fine while editing it. Finally I exported it to a Quicktime file so I could burn it on iDVD. This Quicktime file is a .mov file and it also is at 720x480 pixels. I kept the settings of iDVD on 16:9 aspect ratio and when I finally burned the DVD, I played it on the DVD player. The DVD menus are all wide screen but the video itself is squashed to 4:3 aspect ratio and it has the side bars! What went wrong? Anyone know?

thanks for your help.
 
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I've been experimenting with a few conversion programs myself lately, and am a bit dissatisified with FFMpegX myself for the same reasons you are. I've run through several different ones now, and I highly recommend using MPEG Streamclip. When you load something for conversion, on the side of the options panel you just tell it what the aspect ratio is or what you want it to be. If you need to adjust the resolution down, you can do that separately. Overall it's just a much better program. You can combine videos easily... set up batch conversions... and in general it's just easier to use. And it's free. You only need to get the MPEG2 component for Quicktime from Apple... 20 bucks or so, IIRC.

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/24055
 
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life is a beach

But I don't think the conversion in FFMpeg was the problem, as it played correctly in FCE. Something seemed to happen to the video when I saved it as a quicktime file. If I play it in quicktime it's all squished.
 
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But I don't think the conversion in FFMpeg was the problem, as it played correctly in FCE. Something seemed to happen to the video when I saved it as a quicktime file. If I play it in quicktime it's all squished.

Right... the problem is that it seems even when you tell FFMpegX to preserve the display ratio, it doesn't exactly do that. You have to plug in the numbers (640x480, for ex) yourself in another page somewhere in the software. It's a bit of a nuisance... I don't wholly understand the matter (I'm no expert... just muddling through this myself), but the other software package I suggested works as expected, thus my recommendation. If you want to stick to FFMpegX, then uncheck the option to preserve the aspect ratio, then under the options (I'm at work, so I can't be more specific at the moment), manually enter the resolution you want.

If you still need help after this, I'll be more specific later when I get home and have the app open in front of me, unless someone else comes along in the meanwhile that might be able to help.
 
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Ok... now that I'm sitting in front of my Mac, maybe I can point out a few things.

Firstly, in my example here, I've dropped a DVD rip into ffmpegX and it claims that its resolution is 720x480. BUT.... in reality, it plays back at 640x480. This DVD rip is a TV show with a 4:3 aspect ratio. 720x480 isn't 4:3, but 640x480 is. So why is ffmpegX saying the res is 720x480? It actually is... there's another converter I have that actually shows what's going on. For whatever reason, the raw image is stretched out to a 3:2 ratio, but on playback the player squeezes it back in.

For my conversion, I have to click on the Video tab, tell it to auto-size 4:3, and then Encode. The resulting converted file plays back with normal proportions on my computer at 640x480. Now... if I try to convert this MP4 back to DVD format, the DVD video size is back to 720x480. I don't know why this is (maybe someone can shed light), but in the case of 4:3 aspect videos, it looks like they have to be stretched out to a 3:2 ratio when burned to a DVD format.

So... in your case... what to do? I did a little fiddling here, and I think I see the problem you are having. After you load your original file, select DV in the Target format panel on the Summary page. Next, click on the Video tab. Under Video Parameters, you'll see what the current video size is and what Autosize is set for. These actually DON'T match! At least not in my example (this is what I was trying to gripe about earlier). Click on Autosize, re-select 16:9. and you should see your Video size re-adjust to the correct setting. Go ahead and Encode from here... the rest of your project hopefully will turn out correct. Let us know if this helped.
 
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I've checked into this resolution business. As I said, the resolution started off at 720x576 and ended up at 720x480. As it turns out, we use the NTSC system in the USA and that is 720x480, compared with the PAL system of Europe which is 720x576. So when I ask my format to be in NTSB, that is what the software is really asking me. So it should actually be 720x480. So the file goes off correctly to FCE and it displays correctly in FCE. It's only after it gets converted to a quicktime file that it displays improperly. hmmmmmmm.
 
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correction

In fact, I went back and checked all the resolutions again. I was incorrect when I said the movie did not play properly in Quicktime. It does play widescreen (720x480) in quicktime, and it even says the video is 720x480. So somehow iDVD is just not keeping the video in widescreen. If I play the video in iDVD I can actually go to the Project menu and I can see a selection which is greyed out which says "Change to widescreen (16:9)". If I stop the video from playing and go to the Project Menu/Project Info... menu, it shows that I have the 16:9 aspect ratio selected. It's very frustrating! Perhaps an iDVD bug?
 
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In fact, I went back and checked all the resolutions again. I was incorrect when I said the movie did not play properly in Quicktime. It does play widescreen (720x480) in quicktime, and it even says the video is 720x480. So somehow iDVD is just not keeping the video in widescreen. If I play the video in iDVD I can actually go to the Project menu and I can see a selection which is greyed out which says "Change to widescreen (16:9)". If I stop the video from playing and go to the Project Menu/Project Info... menu, it shows that I have the 16:9 aspect ratio selected. It's very frustrating! Perhaps an iDVD bug?

Well 720x480 isn't a "proper" widescreen ratio. If you divide 720/480, you get 1.5, which is a 3:2 ratio rather than 16:9. It sounds like your original video isn't a widescreen, but a regular NTSC 4:3 video that is "stretched" out like my example was. Try converting the original material to 640x480 and see how it looks. Maybe 720x480 is actually stretched out too much.

Check out this forum... there's an explanation about how the whole 720x480 vs 640x480 thing works. Everything makes a lot more sense to me now.
http://videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/640x480-or-720x480
 
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lifeisabeach

LifeIsABeach, I appreciate your time thinking about my problem! I've been investigating and I've found I'm not the only one with the problem of iDVD squashing the video. I have as yet to find the solution but hopefully I will! I understand that part about the square vs rectangular pixels. The fact is that when I play the DVD on a DVD player, the DVD menus are all widescreen but the video squashes when played! So that is how I know something strange is happening to the video which should not be happening.
 
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Alrighty then... good luck sorting it out. Sorry I can't be more helpful... at least I got to learn something out of this. There's probably a simple solution here... maybe by understanding that iDVD is squashing the video when played, you can compensate by adjusting the width when you reencode the video so it gets squashed back to the way you need it. *shrug* Experimenting with iDVD is next on my to-do list... one of these days. Good luck!
 
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You hit the nail on the head! iDVD has a nasty bug in which any wide screen video is always converted to 4:3 aspect ratio. This seems unacceptable for any software maker that it's HD compatible software is not HD compatible! It's rather shocking that Apple of all companies knows about this problem and they have done nothing about it. Some people are able to use this java script called anamorphic which from the way I understand it puts black bars above and below your video so that it can't get squashed (as it's already squashed .. just with black bars to make it appear that it's widescreen). Of course, this anamorphic does not seem to work well for most people so the option seems to be to put them in yourself in your video editing software. Or of course wait for Apple to fix it?
 

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