NTSC vs NTSC Widescreen

[dvpro]

sweet

Hey,
Thanks for the info. I really appreciate all your help on this! Thanks again!

[paglamon]

You are most welcome.

[MilesAhead]

I'm not sure what it means to "frameserve" but I will definitely check out the programs you mentioned. Thanks!

Funny I just ran a letterboxed .avi through d2mp a bit ago.
It doesn't like Vista and can get some funny errors even in
XP, but what I like about d2mp is it auto crops and resizes
letterboxed stuff to 16x9 very well. The input file was
2:35:1 letterboxed .avi.

Usually what I do is load up all the input files and set all
the switches in d2mp. Start it running, then click cancel.

I copy & paste the generated .avs script and feed it to
other encoders and authoring software. Then I don't have
to worry about cropping or resizing. It's a nice way
to start with an AviSynth script that you know will work.
You can experiment using different resizers or filters
without studying all the ins and outs of AviSynth.

[gonwk]

Hey Miles,

Which programs do you feed the .avs scripts to ... you know the ones that you like and had a good luck with?

G!

[MilesAhead]

Hi. Usually when I use d2mp this way I use QuEnc to encode to mpg and I let it do the audio processing. So far I don't have Super Surround Theater setup and I'm just putting the audio through the TV or TV/Stereo system split from the DVD player RCA outputs.. so I'm not that concerned about sophisticated audio yet.

If you use QuEnc to process the audio as well as the video then you'll get an .mpg output file with navpacks that you can use as input to DVDAuthorGUI or some other
authoring software. I usually use DVDAuthorGUI because it's simple to configure and
it's free.

[gonwk]

Hi Miles,

THANKS!

G!

[MilesAhead]

I just got DVD Rebuilder Pro over the weekend and I had a chance to
try converting a letterboxed to a 16x9 DVD. In the advanced AviSynth
settings there's a checkbox to convert to 16:9. For the aspect ratio to look
good after encoding the letterboxed video has to be pretty close to 1.85:1
to start.

If you can use xvid output then another alternative is AviDemux. The
cropping filter has an AutoCrop button. You can either produce an .avi
video or just make a short clip to check the aspect ratio of the output. If
it is close to 1.85:1 then putting it through DVD Rebuilder may be the
way to go.

I tried one-pass 1500 bitrate xvid on the same video in AviDemux and
got some motion side-effects so some video may require 2 pass mode.

I messed up and had DVD Rebuilder settings to remove all subtitles
except for English. Unfortunately on this video the subs had incorrect IDs
so I had a perfect looking 16x9 DVD but I couldn't select the English subs.
Rather than recode I used SubToSup to get .sup subtitles which I could
put with the .mpg video into SVCD2DVD to mux in the subs without reencoding
the .mpg file. Only trouble is I got funky color subs. But DVDSubEdit
allowed me to change the color scheme to something I could read. So I
learned how to use some of these tools.

If your stand-alone DVD player is finicky about subs another thing you
can do with AviDemux is after AutoCrop, use the VobSub filter to hard
code the subs into the video during encoding. If you have subs with
incorrect IDs then you need to use a tool like VobSubStrip to make an idx/sub pair
with only the sub you want. The VobSub filter in AviDemux has a preview
mode as does the AutoCrop.

I think the next time I'll try AviDemux with higher quality settings
on 2 pass XVID just to see what happens.

[gonwk]

Hey Miles,

Now I know who to bug if I need a "User Friendly Guide".

Actually your explanation above gives an amatuer like em ideas to practice on ... of course ... just with my freewares.

Thanks,
G!

[MilesAhead]

Thanks. I'm always looking for the easy way out. Sometimes I waste a lot of time trying to find it though.

[MilesAhead]

Hmmmm I've been looking at this a bit more and it seems a versatile way to approach it is using FitCD to help generate an AviSynth script. Here's the only "guide" I could find for FitCD:

http://forum.videohelp.com/topic296341.html

A lot of freeware can now generate a 16x9 DVD from avi or divx/xvid input but it's not as
simple to convert an existing DVD that's letterboxed to a 16x9 enhanced DVD. FitCD helps with the calculations then you have to feed the script into an encoder. Still if you mess around with it and figure out what's going on then it should avoid converting to avi just to get the autocropping done for you. Avi to DVD is pretty fast these days but DVD to Avi is pretty slow. AviSynth could make big difference once you and/or I absorb the learning curve.

[gonwk]

Hi Miles,

I wonder if the Authors of DVDFlick or FAVC would consider making a program that goes both ways ... AVI to DVD or DVD to AVI!

G!

[MilesAhead]

FAVC now has support for Vob/Mpg input but doesn't have any automatic way to 16 by 9 ify DVDs. It does have an option not to run the batch file so that you can edit the .avs scripts before running. I can remember using FitCD to convert mpg to 16x9 using TMPGEnc 2.5 in the past, but I'd like to figure out how to do it with an encoder that runs faster with dual core PCs. Guess I just have to sit down and try a few clips. Maybe use a tool to create DVD type mpg files that are only a couple of minutes long as test input.

You could put in a feature request for FAVC to convert Letterbox to 16 x 9. From what I can see, it does a pretty thorough analysis. Mr Odwin hangs around on the FAVC thread on Doom9 forum.

[gonwk]

Hey Miles,

Have you changed your Rig (your computer)!?!? Used to see your Sigline showing your desktop.

Thanks,
G!

[MilesAhead]

Nope. Sometimes when I use Quick Reply it doesn't show the sig. I haven't paid
it that much attention.