Determining Aspect Ratios and Resolutions

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Determining Aspect Ratios and Resolutions

DJRumpy posted 2003 Aug 18 10:12

This guide should be MUCH shorter than the last. Unfortunately, it's a bit more involved, since it involves quite a bit of math.

If your not interested in the gory details (i.e math), just skip to the bottom for the tables. 8)

Intended Audience:
This guide is intended to help you understand how aspect ratios work, how to figure out what aspect ratio your video uses, and finally, how to figure out what resolution to resize to, when converting video from one format to another like AVI to MPEG (VCD, CVD, SVCD, or DVD), or MPEG to AVI.

Required Software:
The only thing you'll need here is a calculator

Optional Software:
VirtualDub (mpeg mod suggested). Use this to find out how much pixel height is used by your video's letter boxing (if any).

The VDub is suggested only for those who have a source file that has letterboxing. Most DivX and XviD files have all letter boxing removed. If your source is something like SVCD, than it most likely has letterboxing that needs to be removed in order to figure out the math properly. Any reference to Video below assumes that the values for width and height reflect a video with ALL letter boxing removed unless specifically noted as PHYSICAL HEIGHT or PHYSICAL WIDTH. You can use VDUB and the CROP filter if you need to visually verify your height/width values of your video's letter boxing.

NOTE: All resolutions are reported with WIDTH first, and then HEIGHT, so a resolution of 640x272 = Width(640) x Height(272). This may seem redundant to repeat this, but you'd be surprised... ;)

Lets get started...

Video Dimensions (frame size) and Types of Aspect Ratio's:
There are three types of numbers we'll be dealing with:
Frame Size: This defines the physical frame size (in pixels) of your video. For instance, NTSC DVD has a frame size of 720x480. NTSC SVCD has a frame size of 480 x 480.

Pixel Aspect Ratio (PAR): The pixel aspect ratio defines the the dimensions of the pixels that make up your video. More accurately, it describes the width to height ratio of the pixels in your video. Note that not all Pixel Aspect Ratio's are 1:1 (i.e. some pixels may be wider than they are tall or taller than they are wide). When you see a movie at the theater that is displayed in a 2.35 aspect ratio, it simply means the movie is 2.35 times wider than it is tall.

Display Aspect Ratio (DAR): This defines the shape of the physically displayed image. For instance if you have an older square television, then it has a 4:3 display aspect ratio. If you have a widescreen television, then it uses a 16:9 aspect ratio.

By figuring out the differences between the two ratio's above, using the Frame Size as your basis, you can stretch and twist your video to work with just about any format.

Display Aspect Ratios - What kinds are there?
There are actually over 38 known display aspect ratio's in use, according to IMDB.COM. You will deal primarily with 5 of the more common aspect ratio's when dealing with video for television:
1.33:1 = ( 4:3 )
1.78:1 = ( 16:9 )
1.85:1 = ( 37:20 )
2.20:1 = ( 11:5 )
2.35:1 = ( 47:20 )

1.66, 2.20, and 2.40 are also somewhat common.

For a full list of release DVD aspect ratio's and their respective numbers, look here: http://us.imdb.com/Sections/DVDs/AspectRatios/

DVD MPEG video supports 2 DAR's (Display Aspect Ratios). The first DAR that we'll talk about is full screen or 4:3 (1.333 decimal), and the other is widescreen 16:9 (1.78 decimal). You may be thinking to yourself that you know for a fact that you have DVD's with other aspect ratio's. Don't confuse those numbers with the Display Aspect Ratio that the video will be presented in. Remember that DAR defines the shape of the physically displayed image, not necessarily the Aspect Ratio on the video/movie itself.

DVD can only present video in two aspects. 16:9 or 4:3. Other aspects are resized to fit into the above to display aspect ratio's as we'll see below.

Aspect Ratio - The Basic Math:
To determine a simple Aspect Ratio, you would normally divide the video's width, by it's height. For AVI files with no letterboxing, this is a no-brainer because most AVI's use a 1:1 Pixel Aspect Ratio (The pixels are square). If my example AVI video had no letterboxing, a Width of 640, and a Height of 272, then I would simply divide 640 / 272 to get the decimal display aspect ratio of 2.35. I'll refer to the decimal aspect ratio quite a bit in this guide. The "Decimal" aspect ratio is obtained simply by dividing the aspect ratio's top number, by the bottom number (Dividing width by height). If our video is a 16:9 video, we divide 16 by 9, and we get 1.78 decimal ( 16 / 9 = 1.78 rounded to nearest 100th ). From here on out, I'll refer to the aspect ratio's by their decimal value most of the time:

4/3 = 1.333 (or 1.33 rounded to the nearest 100th)
16/9 = 1.777 (or 1.78 rounded to the nearest 100th)

Formats using aspect ratios:
Since AVI doesn't usually support an embedded display aspect ratio, you should encode it's Frame Size (physical dimensions) according to display aspect ratio you want it to be displayed with. In other words, if you have a theatrical movie that has an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 and you want to encode your AVI for playback on a PC, then you would simply resize it using a 2.35:1 aspect ratio. if you resized your AVI's width to 640 then you would simply divide 640 by the video's aspect ratio of 2.35 to get the proper vertical size (640 / 2.35 = 272). Your AVI, if it has a 640 width, would be resized to 640 x 272. You can also determine the video's width if you use the video's Height instead. 272 * 2.35 = 640. This is the easiest type of aspect ratio to figure out because the pixels used are all square (1:1).

MPEG on the other hand DOES support a Display Aspect Ratio, meaning that video encoded in MPEG can have any Frame size (physical dimensions). The DAR embedded in the MPEG tells the player decoding the MPEG exactly how wide the video should be based on that DAR. For example, if you have an SVCD which is 480 wide by 480 tall. The MPEG in that SVCD has an embedded DAR (Display Aspect Ratio) of 4:3 (remember the DAR defines how the image should physically be displayed), then we know that the Width of said 480 high MPEG should be 4 pixels wide for every 3 pixels tall. In other words if we convert that 4:3 aspect ratio to a decimal value (4 / 3 = 1.333), the video would be 1.333 times wider than it is tall. 480 * 1.333 = 640 (rounded to the nearest whole number). If you take all of the above info into account, when a DVD player plays back a 480x480 video, it takes the height of 480, and stretches the video to 1.333 times as wide as it is tall (640 wide x 480 height). Thus your 'square' 480x480 SVCD looks properly proportioned when played back on a 4:3 display.

AVI Resolutions:
This section is the easiest to understand, since AVI doesn't typically support a Display Aspect Ratio (DAR) property. AVI pixel aspect ratios are simple 1:1. Meaning you can simply divide the Width by the height to determine it's aspect.

The most common that you'll find are as follows:

640 x 272
640 x 292
640 x 344
640 x 480

The math is just as simple. Divide your AVI's width by your AVI's height:

640/272 = 2.35
640/292 = 2.20
640/344 = 1.85
640/480 = 1.33

The numbers to the right of the equal sign should look familiar to you. Those are the Aspect Ratio's of the AVI video. Please note that 640 isn't an unwritten rule of some sort. I just used 640 as an example as many AVI's start with a 640 width. Your AVI may have a 540 width, a 480 width, whatever. The same math applies to any width you have. That's all there is to finding an AVI's Display Aspect Ratio (the ratio that defines the physically displayed image) of your movie when it's played back. It's rare to find a DivX/XviD with letterboxing intact. They almost always have them removed, so you only see image area. Leaving letterboxing in while encoding to AVI/MPEG-4 wastes space and bitrate when encoding. If your AVI still has letterboxing, simply remove it so you have only actual image area (you can quickly and visually do this with VirtualDub and the crop filter), and then do the calculations for aspect. The math will work for just about any AVI at any resolution. Just divide width by height to get aspect. Not all AVI's will come out exact, due to human error. Many people also change the dimensions a tiny bit to keep them at multiples of 4, 8, or 16 for compressor compatibility. They will sometimes be a smidgen off, and sometimes you'll wonder what drugs the original author was taking :shock: . Just use common sense, and fit the video to the closest corresponding aspect ratio. If in doubt, search GOOGLE for the video's title, and the key words 'Aspect Ratio' to find out it's original theatrical aspect ratio. Not much else to see here..moving on...

MPEG Resolutions:
MPEG is where aspect starts to get confusing for many people. MPEG video has a Frame Size (the physical pixel dimensions of the MPEG like 720x480, the Pixel Aspect Ratio (PAR) which defines the width to height ratio of the video itself (these would be the theatrical aspect that your used to seeing like 1.78, 1.33, 2.35, 1.85, etc), and finally, the Display Aspect Ratio (DAR) which defines the shape of the physically displayed image. Figuring out MPEG video requires 2 steps, where AVI requires only one. First, you find out it's Display Aspect Ratio Width, and then you can figure out it's Pixel Aspect Ratio (PAR) as you do with an AVI. An MPEG has a display aspect property called a DAR (Display Aspect Ratio), which tells the MPEG player how to decide on playback, what the MPEG's true playback width should be. It does this according to your DAR embedded in the MPEG stream (this is where that 16:9 setting comes into play on your home DVD player) and the physical frame size of your MPEG; specifically the Height of your MPEG. The physical width and height (Frame Size) of your MPEG does NOT have to equal a Pixel Aspect Ratio like 1.333, 1.78, 1.85, 2.20, or 2.35). If you divide 720x480 you'll quicly see that the Frame size of a standard NTSC DVD has an aspect ratio of 1.5 (720 / 480 = 1.5 ). As noted above, only the vertical size of the mpeg is important. With that, and the DAR we can figure out the rest. We figure out the video's Pixel Aspect Ratio by figuring out two factors.

By using the encoded vertical Frame Size, we multiply that by the DAR ( 1.78 or 1.33) on the MPEG, and then divide that by the PAR of the video to determine exactly how 'tall' the video should be in pixels.

Sounds awful doesn't it? ;) Don't panic, it's easy.

Fullscreen Aspect Ratios:
Standard NTSC video has 480 vertical lines lines that are visible and that's what we'll base our numbers off of. If you are encoding a Fullscreen 4:3 DAR video you would multiply 480 * 4/3 (or better put, 480 * 1.333). That gives you 640. This is the DAR WIDTH of your video as it is played back on a 4:3 DVD. The final piece is determining how tall your video should be when encoding it to a 4:3 DVD. To find that, you divide your playback DAR width of 640 by the video's theatrical aspect ratio. For this example, lets say you have a 2.35 widescreen AVI you are encoding to 4:3 DVD. 640 / 2.35 = 272. Your video's height would be 272 and the rest would be letterboxing filling out the remainder of the height to 480.

480 * 1.333 (4:3 DAR aspect) = 640 (rounded)
640 / 2.35 = 272 pixels in height

Now we know exactly how many pixels 'tall' our DVD video should be for a 4:3 DVD. The rest would be filled up with letterboxing ( 480 - 272 = 208 pixels of letterboxing. 104 pixels on top and 104 pixels on bottom ).

If you do not know your video's theatrical PAR, then you can tackle this from the other side. Remove any letterboxing and take the vertical height of actual video image are (without letterboxing) and divide that value into the DAR's true width. If we ripped that video from a 4:3 DVD, it has a true DAR width of 640. If our video's height is 360 pixels high, and we follow our math: ( 640 / 360 = 1.78 rounded ). We know know our PAR for the video in question is 1.78.

Widescreen Aspect Ratios:
Just to keep things interesting, true widescreen finally made it's debut on home video, via DVD. Before DVD, everything you saw on your television had been 'dumbed' down to a 4:3 aspect ratio (more on this later). If you examine any DVD box, you'll find the films aspect ratio usually reported right on the box. It's oddly rare to find one that is true 16:9. Widescreen versions are usually either 2.35:1, 2.20:1, 1.85:1, or 1.78:1. DVD's may say 'enhanced for 16:9 TV's' which is somewhat vague, or just 16:9, which means it us 1.78 video (16:9). I have no idea why they came up with this number, although I've been told it was a variant of the 4:3 aspect (4x4 / 3x3...those cooky engineers..gotta love em..or want to stab em). Widescreen televisions usually have a 16.9 ( 1.78 ) aspect ratio. Why all the aspect lables? I thought you said there were only two aspect ratios? Why do they mis-lable them this way? In truth, they aren't. The video is MPEG, and if you've read the descriptions above, DVD MPEG typically uses just two DAR's for DVD video: 16:9 and 4:3. This isn't saying that you can't have 2.35, 2.20, or 1.85:1. It just says the Display Aspect Ratio property for the MPEG typically supports only those two Display Aspect's. It is independent of the Frame Size of the video. To make all of this work, they 'squeeze' the width -->[ ]<-- of any of the wider aspect ratios (1.85, 2.20, and 2.35), so it 'fits' into a 1.78 aspect ratio (This is called Anamorphic Widescreen. 16:9 video is just called Widescreen). To figure out a DVD's playback resolution, you do the same thing we did above for SVCD. You first find out it's TRUE DAR width, and then, from there, you can find out it's Pixel Aspect ratio.

For this example, lets assume a full D1 NTSC DVD, with a 2.35:1 Pixel Aspect Ratio. This is an anamorphic widescreen video, but the math is all still the same. Multiply the physical MPEG HEIGHT (480), by the mpeg's Display Aspect Ratio. Since this is a widescreen format, we'll use the 1.77 DAR (16:9), instead of 1.333:

480 * 1.77 = 852 (rounded to the nearest 4)
This is our videos true DAR WIDTH. We then divide this width by our PAR (Pixel Aspect Ratio) of 2.35:

852 / 2.35 = 360 (rounded to the nearest 4)
So this movies actual Video Image Area would be 852 x 360.
You would fill the remaining vertical area with letterboxing: 480 - 360 = 120 pixels of letterboxing

So now what? We have an 852x480 video (with letterboxing). That certainly won't fit within a DVD's specs of a 720 or 704 width? The answer is simple. Since the MPEG has an embedded DAR we simply resize our width to fit the standard we are encoding to (720 or 704 for DVD, 480 width for SVCD, 352 width for CVD, etc).

At this point, you should have a basic understanding of finding out a movies true height/width. With this in hand, you can also do the reverse if needed. If you have a video's height (image area only), and the Display Aspect Ratio ( 1.78 for widescreen DVD, 1.333 for fullscreen DVD, 1.333 for SVCD, CVD, and VCD), then you can figure out the Pixel Aspect Ratio for your video. Lets say you open your DVD MPEG in VirtualDub, and after removing any letterboxing, you find that your video image area is 360 pixels in height once the letterboxing is removed:

Since we know that all DVD Widescreen material starts with an 852 width (480 * 1.78), then we simply divide that width by the various different standard aspect ratios, to see which is closest to our movies height (image area only).

(note: again these are all rounded to the nearest number that is divisible by 4)

852 / 2.35 = 360
852 / 2.20 = 388
852 / 1.85 = 460
852 / 1.78 = 480

Looks like our example movie has a 2.35:1 aspect ratio. If, for some reason, this video was placed onto DVD using a 4:3 (1.333 decimal) aspect ratio, then instead of using 852 for our DAR width, we would use 640:
( 480*1.333=640)
In this case, our numbers would look like this:

640 / 2.35 = 272
640 / 2.20 = 292
640 / 1.85 = 344
640 / 1.78 = 360
640 / 1.33 = 480

This last set of numbers would work for any 4:3 format, like CVD, SVCD, or 4:3 DVD, with the only difference being the width of the video. It would, of course, have to fit the format (ex., 480 width for SVCD, 720 width for DVD, etc).

Widescreen and SVCD:
What about SVCD, and it's 4:3 aspect ratio limitation? Your probably thinking that you have seen multitudes of SVCD's with widescreen video. How does that work? What they've done, is fit a 16:9 widescreen movie, into a 4:3 aspect ratio. How? They simply resize it to a 4:3 vertical height, by using the 4:3 display width, instead of the 16:9 display width. You do this by shrinking the widescreen video in on all sides. The video's full 852 width and 480 height are reduced in size, until it fits into the 640 DAR width (480 * 1.333). Of course, when they do this, you end up with a shorter vertical, and letterboxing as a result:

When the widescreen is sized down, to fit into the 4:3 displays 640 width, you end up with something like this:

Note that we haven't lost any image area. It's just gotten smaller (both horizontally and vertically).

SVCD Limitations:
What about placing a true 16:9 video onto SVCD, without letterboxing? This can be done, and it will display properly on a widescreen television. As you may have guessed, this pretty much ruins your SVCD for a standard television. This is NOT backward compatible with a 4:3 television. You do this, by doing the reverse of example 2. Instead of reducing the image to fit into the 640 width, you simply increase the width until it fits the 852 widescreen width. Now you may be thinking 'Now what?'. You've got this huge video, which your supposed to fit onto an SVCD. Remember the nice thing about MPEG is the ability to resize the horizontal to any supported width. The resize is based on the VERTICAL HEIGHT. Meaning we simply resize our vertical to a 1.78 (16:9) height, and just set the horizontal to a supported resolution ( w480 x h362 ). The vertical height of the image is the key. Because the height is 'too tall' for 4:3 television, the video will look 'right' on a widescreen television, because the vertical height is correct for 16:9. The width of the video is simply stretched to the edge of the display. If I've lost you here, take a breath. The numbers are easy. Disregard the width for the moment:

480 (our svcd media's physical width), times a widescreen aspect ( 480 * 1.78 ) = 852 true width. If your movie has a Pixel Aspect Ratio of 2.35:1, we then divide ( 852 / 2.35 = 360 ). The 360 (rounded to the nearest 4) value is our widescreen vertical value. You would then add letterboxing to fill out the vertical to the full 480 height. For the MPEG aspect ratio, you could set the aspect ratio to 16:9, but that would make the SVCD non-compliant. What you do instead, is set it to 4:3. Because of the DAR on the mpeg, the video width is played back at 640x480. It will look 'right' only on a widescreen television though. It would look very tall on a standard 4:3 television, but the disk would be compliant with SVCD standards. This is because a 16:9 video's vertical height is 360 for a 2.35:1 in widescreen format, where it would normally only be 272 pixels high for the same video encoded for 4:3. By keeping this video's 16:9 height within a 4:3 DAR, the video is stretched out as usual, but it's taller height makes it appear 'right' on a 16:9 widescreen tv. Trust me on this one...it works. ;)

Tables Tables and more Tables:

Here is the meat of the guide. Resolutions to be used when formatting MPEG. All vertical values are divisible by 4. This is so that any letterboxing is always even from top to bottom. All of the figures below are for image area only. If the VERTICAL image area is less than 480, then you would add letterboxing to fill the remainder until the height is equal to 480
(example: 720x360 would need 60 letterbox on top, and 60 letterbox on bottom) to fill it out to a proper 720x480 NTSC resolution.

All of these resolutions are generated by dividing the 4:3 display aspect's true physical height of 640 by the aspect ratio decimal). The first table is to be used for any MPEG you are encoding which will have a 4:3 aspect ratio flag (DAR) applied to it.

For an example using the tables below, If I was encoding an AVI to 4:3 NTSC DVD, then I would use Table 1 (for 4:3 MPEG). If the AVI had a 2.35 aspect ratio, I would resize my AVI to 720x272 according to the chart in Table 1, and then fill in the remaining vertical from 272 to 480 with letterboxing.

If I was encoding the same 2.35 aspect AVI to a 16:9 NTSC DVD, then I would use Table 2 (for 16:9 video) and resize my AVI to 720x360 and fill in the remaining 360-480 vertical with letterboxing.

(Table 1)

When encoding to a 4:3 Aspect MPEG
SourceAspect	CVD NTSC / PAL	SVCD NTSC / PAL	DVD NTSC / PAL
1.33	352x480 / 352x576	480x480 / 480x576	352x480 / 352x576 704x480 / 704x576 720x480 / 720x576
1.78	352x360 / 352x432	480x360 / 480x432	352x360 / 352x432 704x360 / 704x432 720x360 / 720x432
1.85	352x348 / 352x416	480x348 / 480x416	352x348 / 352x416 704x348 / 704x416 720x348 / 720x416
2.20	352x292 / 352x344	480x292 / 480x344	352x292 / 352x344 704x292 / 704x344 720x292 / 720x344
2.35	352x272 / 352x324	480x272 / 480x324	352x272 / 352x324 704x272 / 704x324 720x272 / 720x324

(Table 2)

*When encoding to a 16:9 Aspect MPEG (see note below)*
Source Aspect	CVD NTSC / PAL	SVCD NTSC / PAL	DVD NTSC / PAL
1.33	1.33 Not Applicable: See above table for 1.33 resolutions
1.78	352x480 / 352x576	480x480 / 480x576	352x480 / 352x576 704x480 / 704x576 720x480 / 720x576
1.85	352x460 / 352x552	480x460 / 480x552	352x460 / 352x552 704x460 / 704x552 720x460 / 720x552
2.20	352x388 / 352x432	480x388 / 480x464	352x388 / 352x464 704x388 / 704x464 720x388 / 720x464
2.35	352x360 / 352x432	480x360 / 480x432	352x360 / 352x432 704x360 / 704x432 720x360 / 720x432

*The CVD and SVCD resolutions listed in Table 2 are for use with Widescreen Televisions Only. SVCD and CVD do not technically support an MPEG with a 16:9 DAR flag - Use these resolutions only if you have a widescreen television, for video that you want to look 'right' on a Widescreen TV, while keeping the disc compliant in a 4:3 aspect ratio (i.e. SVCD/CVD). Use the vertical height values for a 16:9 display, while placing a 4:3 DAR (Display Aspect Ratio) flag when encoding the MPEG. The video will not look right on a standard television (too tall), but it will look 'right' on a Widescreen television. It will also be fully compliant with the SVCD/CVD standard.

PAL vs NTSC:
For conversions to and from PAL and NTSC video, you simply multiply the vertical height by the following:

PAL to NTSC: Multiply the vertical by .8334 (example: 576 * .8334 = 480)
NTSC to PAL: Multiply the vertical by 1.2 (example: 480 * 1.2 = 576)

IMPORTANT: To properly figure PAL resolutions, first convert them to NTSC, do the math, and then convert your results back to PAL. With that in mind, a 2.35:1 video on DVD with a vertical image area of 360 would be 432 for PAL ( 360 * 1.2 = 432 ), with the remainder made up with letterboxing to fill out the vertical to 576.

vhelp posted 2003 Aug 18 18:53

Hi DJRumpy.. :)

Just beautiful :P I love it, I love it.. hehe.. Bookmarked !!

Thank very much for this indepth gory detailed explanation and math behind
it all. I can't wait to sink my teeth into all these, I'm so excited :P but I
have a few other fun things to finish up on. And, yes, I'll keep tabs on the
revisions you'll undoubfuly make along the way. Rest assured, I'll be refering
back to this on a regular bases :!:

So much to do, and so little time to do them all :P :x :x

Thanks again, pal..
-vhelp

vhelp posted 2003 Aug 18 18:58

Ah, yes.. my first question here..

DJ, how will this apply to other sources ie, divX.. or better yet, my ADVC-100
captures of widescreen TV shows and Movies ??

Is there a difference in handling of calculating Aspect Ratios for Capture
Sources ?? ..as these won't have TRUE aspect ratios written on them, as DVD's
do.

Thanks,
-vhelp

FOO posted 2003 Aug 18 19:16

You are a maniac. To achieve sainthood you should
tell us how to edit IVTC mpeg2.

DJRumpy posted 2003 Aug 18 19:32

DivX/Xvid and other captures to AVI (divx, huffman, etc) are all treated just like any AVI. Captures can be treated a bit differently since you can capture at any odd resolution. Try to capture in a standard 4:3 resolution, like 720x480, 640x480, etc. Once you've got the capture you you have to crop down to the actual image area of your capture if it's letterboxed. If it's fullscreen, then just treat it as fullscreen 4:3 video and resize it apppropriately. If your capture is Letterboxed Widescreen, then it is the equivelent of a 16:9 movie, placed into a 4:3 aspect ratio. Chop off the letterboxing, and restore to Widescreen, or keep it the way it is, treating it like letterbosed 4:3 video (just like svcd for instance). Your choice. The guide should help you determine what aspect ratio your capture is without letterboxing, and go from there.

FOO, IVTC is just a matter of applying a filter, either via VirtualDub, or AVISynth, or whatever editor you choose. Not too much magic going on there. The trick is spotting IVTC video, and once you are able to spot the 3:2 pattern in the video, the rest is easy. It will show a distinct pattern of 3 progressive and two interlaced frames. Just view any telecined video by stepping through each frame one at a time in something like VirtualDub. The telecined frames are a dead giveaway. Although the 3:2 pattern can often break into a seemingly random sequences at times, it will usually keep to the 3:2 pattern overall. My preference for a IVTC filter is AVISynth and the DECOMB.DLL filter by dgraft ( http://shelob.mordor.net/dgraft ). It does an excellent job of it. ;)

j1d10t posted 2003 Aug 18 19:44

Let me start out by saying: Wow. Excellent. I think this is one of the best guides out there. Excellent work DJRumpy! Many, many thanks for such a great guide/explanation of aspect ratios :D

FOO posted 2003 Aug 18 21:03

DJRumpy
I guess you don''t appreciate that there is a problem.
I understand that since it looks like you are into other aspects of video.

I know all about it except how to EDIT it without
screwing it up.

It wasn't really a serious question. I doubt you can do it any better than anyone else.

DJRumpy posted 2003 Aug 19 07:33

That sounds like a challenge.. ;)

Seriously though, what sort of problem are you having?

FOO posted 2003 Aug 19 07:55

I've been trying for years to find a program that will
edit mpeg2 video Frame Accurately. I'm simply trying to
remove commercials. Several will cut on GOP boundaries.
Most end up cutting at the wrong place, causing A/V unsync,
or producing an anomaly at the splice that confuses MPEG decoders.

I thought I had it with Womble MPEG2VCR. I works perfectly and very
fast EXCEPT when the MPEG2 has had IVTC applied. In that case there
is a noticeable A/V shift at every splice.

I capture lots of movies in MPEG2 because the source quality is such
that doing it the hard way just doesn't help much and I don't like waiting
hours for an encode.

My capture card will capture MPEG2 with iVTC on the fly. I would like to
be able to edit that..

Hardcoreruss posted 2003 Aug 19 07:59

Excellent, bookmarked, one thing I always struggle with.

Thanks

Baldrick posted 2003 Aug 19 09:56

Superb!

DJRumpy posted 2003 Aug 19 12:10

Thanks Baldrick!

DJRumpy posted 2003 Aug 19 13:20

Sorry Foo, I didn't see your reply there.

FOO :

This is actually pretty easy. You can use AVISynth, the TRIM command, and quickly remove any unwanted material (commercials). I could do a guide on editing captures. It will seemlessly splice these frames together, with no loss of audio sync, or video hiccups. If you use various options in AVISynth, you can even make it field specific, although that's not necessary. The TRIM command only needs to parameters. {Start Frame} and {End Frame} like so:

Trim( 0,5000)

This trim command would return frames 0-5000.

You use VirtualDub to quickly locate the ranges of frames you need. You then plug them into AVISynth using the trim command like so:

mpeg2source("dvd2avi.d2v")
clip1=Trim(0,5000)
clip2=Trim(5250,10000)
clip3=Trim(10250,0)
clip1++clip2++clip3

The above will give you frames 0-5000, frames 5250-10000, and frames 10250 to the end of the movie (0 as the first variable means 'from the beginning' and 0 at the last variable means 'to the end').

The .AVS script can then be dropped onto your encoder of choice. Removing commericals from an hour of video takes all of 5 minutes this way ( minus encoding time of course). No temporary files, no muss, no fuss.

FOO posted 2003 Aug 19 14:31

Thanks but,
That's not editing MPEG2 is it ?
If I was willing to encode, there would be no problem.

The goal here is to capture MPEG2 IVTC on the fly,
which my capture card will do, and delete commercials,
and author to DVD directly. I do it regularly and sucessfully
without the IVTC.

Yes it's true, I'm lazy. Don't want to wait for hours on the encode. :(

DJRumpy posted 2003 Aug 19 18:33

8) I can't help you there. The only way you can currently do that is with an editor before encoding. The process above, coupled with CCE, takes about 1 hour including encoding time, which isn't bad. It also allows filtering for noise.

What capture card are you using? I wasn't aware they had hardware performing IVTC now. That would be very useful during captures. What formats besides MPEG does it support, and what resolutions?

FOO posted 2003 Aug 19 21:40

I've had an ATI Radeon 8500 for years.
There were a lot of very irriitating problems for a long time.
I won't bore you with them.
Every few months they upgrade the software. I keep up.
Now it will capture MPEG2 with various filters and with IVTC
at 720 x 480 at high rates on the fly.
It apparently has a hardware assisted encoder. Some of the work
is done by the hardware and some by the PC. Nobody knows for
sure.
One clue is that it only does all that with it's own capture settings.
If you make it capture AVI with for example PicVideo MJPEG it is
more prone to drop frames and the audio is always out of sync a fixed amount.

It supports whatever you supply for a codec within limits and whatever resolution.

I capture lots of wierd old movies. It is so convenient to just
delete commercials and burn. but I want it all. I want IVTC too

gonzalimator posted 2003 Aug 20 00:59

veeerrrrrry nice DJRumpy! great guide, very well put.

just a small question. Is the first picture correct when it reports 720 pixels as the height? I thought it was 480. :)

Yeah i know...nobody likes a smartass. I couldn't resist.

DJRumpy posted 2003 Aug 20 06:19

LOL...chalk that one up! Your right. The vertical should be 480 (ntsc), not 720. I should drink more coffee in the morning...

When I created the image, I had to flip it on it's side to put the text in (I'm at work with the most primative of graphic tools). The 'height' became the 'width' while I was typing in the text :drool:

I'll post a fixed image this morning.

Mythos2002 posted 2003 Aug 20 14:48

Thanks DJRumpy for the awesome guide. It certainly does help clear a lot of things up for me.

Mythos

RayS posted 2003 Aug 20 23:10

I can answer one of your questions. That is: where did the 16:9 aspect ratio come from? Its actually incredibly stupid and was born during the High Definition Television wars several years ago. Somewhere along the way, the National Television Standards Committee (NTSC) was replaced by the Society for Motion Picture and Television (SMPT). The US Government has been doing this for a while. Rather than hold ownership over Standards and Government developed computer models, they have been asigning technical oversite to private enterprise groups. (Maybe this was part of the "deregulation" BS.) Consequently, to get copies of the standards, you now have to pay money to these groups rather than get the documents from the US Government Printing Office like in olden days.
Believe it or not, the 16:9 aspect ratio was derived from the 4:3 NTSC RS-170 broadcast standard by taking 4 square (4 x 4 = 16) by 3 square ( 3 x 3 = 9). I think they believed this might alow the creation of a new broadcast standard that would be capable of being viewed on older 4 : 3 aspect ratio television sets as well as HDTV sets. How's that for rocket science!

presto posted 2003 Aug 21 02:54

A truly great guide. Thanks. I can't believe how complex and counter intuitive they have made this. Your guide helps a lot.

DJRumpy posted 2003 Aug 21 04:44

Thanks for all the feedback guys/gals.

I don't know that it necessarily makes it counter intuative, rather it keeps the format flexible. It's just grasping the relationship between the two different aspect ratios (MPEG and Video) and how they interact with each other. Once you understand how they relate, the rest is easy.

Rays: one mystery solved at least... ;)

DeepX posted 2003 Aug 22 18:05

Great stuff,
But I'm not sure how this is possible:

When I capture (MPEG2) with my Hauppauge PVR350, and
I use 720x576 (vbr 4400) the quality is not very good.
But when I capture 352x576 (vbr 4400) the quality is much better.

Why? (doesn't your television use a high resolution?)
Or is it still better to capture in higher resolution? :?:

DeepX

DJRumpy posted 2003 Aug 23 07:15

This is one of those 'opinion' topics. I'll go out on a limb here, and say that I think most would agree that you should capture at full frame (720x576, or 720x480), and then reduce your image if needed. The reduction in size also reduces analog noise in your capture. You should also be running a temporal or spatial smoother on your video to clean it up. They can make a huge difference in the quality of your capture.

Your television itself can technically display about 540 lines (ntsc), I'm not sure what PAL tv's are capable of. Removing overscan, and image area that isn't used, it leaves you with about 480 lines for your display. Your television doesn't use a real horizontal resolution technically.

EddyH posted 2003 Aug 23 23:33

havent read it all fully.. but what i saw with skipping thru - looks good! :)

jimA posted 2003 Aug 27 12:26

Pheew, about 9/10 of that went over my head.

Anyone know where I can find a "so, you dl'ed this avi, and you wanna convert it to a (s)vcd that fits you'r 16:9 telly, but you get black borders either top-bottom or at the sides ?"

/jim

DJRumpy posted 2003 Aug 27 19:11

If your not ready for this, check teh HOW TO - GUIDES section, specifically DivX to DVD, or DivX to MPEG, or DivX to SVCD.

jimA posted 2003 Aug 28 04:29

But there are only 35 of those guides ..... :D

And I have read some of those in the past, and none of them fits the bill. It's always something like "determine the correct aspect ratio, and change settings accordingly, and THEN continue with this guide".....

So I hoped someone would reply to this saying "My guide tells exactly that !, here is the URL"

/jim (still hoping)

DJRumpy posted 2003 Aug 28 04:47

Well, your conversion type is one of the easiest. You can simply drop your DivX/XviD or whatever type of AVI it is, directly into TMPGenc. Pick the type of media you want to create from the wizard, set the number of discs your going to use (usually at least two for CD-R discs, and 1 for DVD), and go.

If I have time today, or this weekend, I'll look at putting a DivX to MPEG guide together. Of course I'll refer you here to this guide for aspect ratio ;)

If 9/10ths of this guide went over your head, then you need to understand at least the basics before you can do any serious encoding. AVI is the easiest. Just divide the width of your AVI by the height, to get the rough aspect ratio. The rest of the work involves any editing (unlikely in your case, since you downloaded this AVI), and the encoding process. If you want serious help, then post a message in the proper forum. State what tools your using (i.e VirtualDub, Main Concept Encoder, and your converting AVI). You get the idea. It's hard to offer help when we have no idea what your working with.

jimA posted 2003 Aug 28 10:06

http://www.dvdrhelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=175960

After U have made some sort of reply to that post, I will delete my posts in this thread, then U can delete U're replys to my posts and U can have a nice "clean" thread again :)

thx
/jim

DJRumpy posted 2003 Aug 28 16:38

No worries. The guide thread won't interfere. I've posted a reply to your forum post.

BrainSoup posted 2003 Aug 30 07:08

Hi DjRumpy !

Iam sure the guide is very good,but iam struggle to understand it ,maybe becouse of lack in my english.
Would u please give a simpe examples to this post?
I mean just the math without explanations....i think a lot of people will apreciate that....for example :

If i have Source Video 640x480 25 FPS (1.33 Full Screen)
and i want leave it PAL.
In virtual dub,while frameserv, what New Width and New Heght i need to enter ?
Also what is new Frame Width and New Frame height i should to use?

And for NTSC example lets say source is 640x272 29 FPS (2.35 Aspect)
same ,what the new widths and heights we need to enter when resize and frameserv with VDub.

Please show us just how u do for those 2 examples the math !!!!Please !
With those examples i hope more people will understand how to resize ,they will just put instead of those numbers the resolution numbers of their own source video and do the math !

Thank you for any help !!!

DJRumpy posted 2003 Sep 02 07:46

If your converting to DVD, and your source is 1.33, then you simply resize to 720x576 if your source is (pal), or 720x480 (ntsc). Use the table at the bottom of the guide, looking for the format you want to convert TO (DVD for example), and then look for the aspect ratio of your movie (1.333). Each entry lists a valid resolution you can resize to (for instance, the 1.333 video lists 3 resoutions you can resize to).

For 1.333 video:
720x480
704x480
352x480

You also asked about 2.35 video. Looking at the table, I can see that for that ratio, I can choose 2 ratios ( the last option is only if you own a widescreen TV, and you want a widescreen picture using Half-D1 resolutions):

For 2.35 video:
720x360
704x360
352x460 ( set aspect to 4:3 on mpeg [widescreen tv's only])

You could resize to either 720x360, or 704x360, and then add letterboxing to fill out the 360 vertical to a proper 480.

If your working with PAL, then just multiply these numbers by 1.2 ( 360*1.2 = 432) to get the proper PAL vertical resolution. If your movie is a 2.35:1 aspect (PAL), and you want to resize it to fit onto a DVD, you would resize it to 720x432 (360*1.2=432), and add letterboxing to the 432 vertical height of your video to the PAL vertical of 576.

BrainSoup posted 2003 Sep 02 15:11

Damn....iam forgot to say that i was converting to SVCD :-(

DJRumpy posted 2003 Sep 03 04:45

Almost the same answer, just use the SVCD part of the table:
CVD/SVCD:

For 1.333 video:
480x480
352x480
For 1.77 video:
480x360
352x360
For 1.85 video:
480x348
352x348
For 2.35 video:
480x272
352x272

SVCD / CVD supports two different resolutions. 352x480 and 480x480. If your player supports one, chances are it supports the other. Just pick the aspect ratio, and then the resolution you want. For example, a 2.53 video, can be resized to 480x272, with letterboxing added to the vertical (272) to fill it out to 480, or you could make a CVD, resizing to 352x272, with letterboxing filling out the 272 vertical to 480. As usual, 1.33 video has no letterboxing. You would just resize it to 480x480 (svcd) or 352x480 (cvd).

BrainSoup posted 2003 Sep 03 11:19

Ok ,allow me to intriduce what i have understand till now.

I will Use VDub and CCE v2.5
and some settings for DvD2SVCD also

I have that weird avi file that is 544x304 resolution 25 FPS
so i devide it to get aspect ratio
544/304=1.7894
So aspect ratio is 1.77

Then i do this calculations for this PAL avi :

Heght=((720/X)xY)/(54/59)

where X is Width and Y is Hight of my source AVI

i do (54/59) becouse its PAL, for NTSC i will do (11/10)

H=((720/544)x304)/(0.91525)
H=439.609
For better results MMX, number should be divided by 4 so i will use
H=440

Ok, so from now on i can use VDub for FrameServ and add those :
New Width = 480
New Height = 440

Check "Expand Frame And Letter Box Image"

New Frame Width = 480
New Frame Height = 576 (since i work with PAL)

And let the CCE FrameServ.Then The rest is known.

For DVD2SVCD i use a little bit different settings .
What i do is that i manually edit AviSynth script.
So i need to add borders manually.

When edit the AviScript i use this formula
Added Borders = (576-H)/2
AB=(576-440)/2
AB=68
So in script i use :
ResizeBicubic(480,440)
AddedBorders(0,68,0,68)

Then i let the DVD2SVCD finish the work.

Basicly i do this math for NTSC movies also
but resulution instead of (480x576) is (480x480)
and u use (11/10) instead of (54/59)

ALso for full screen avis if its PAL i just resize it to (480x576) without any borders added and expanding letter box
and for full screen NTCS i just resize it to (480x480) without any borders added.

Dj Rumpy fix me if iam wrong somewhere and if there is nothing to fix i hope this will help many confused people ! :-) :-)))

DJRumpy posted 2003 Sep 03 16:10

I'm not sure why your going through all of those gyrations. I'm assuming your source file is AVI? Remember that all of the calculations are based off of NTSC aspect ratios, so you must convert the vertical to NTSC, and then do the math.

Heght=((720/X)xY)/(54/59)

I have no idea what this is supposed to be, or why your using it ;). If your source is PAL, and your converting from AVI to MPEG, then you simply divide the AVI vertical by .8334 to convert to NTSC vertical. This is how we figure out which Aspect ratio it uses (we'll convert it back to PAL when were ready).

Movie Source resolution: 544x304

304 * .8334 = 253 NTSC vertical

This movie would most likely be a 2.35:1, not a 1.77:1. A vertical of 253 is pretty far off from 272, so it's possible someone resized the AVI incorrectly, or they resized the AVI to NTSC, but didn't convert the framerate. I've hit a few like that off the web. Does your AVI look tall, or short in any way? Anyway...

A 2.35 movie correlates to a vertical height of 272 (see the table). We take that 272 vertical, and convert back to PAL to get our SVCD vertical PAL resolution: 272 * 1.2 = 324 (rounded to the nearest 4). The rest would be filled with letterboxing ( 576 PAL vertical - 324 movie area = 252 Letterboxing )

252 / 2 = 126 Top Letterbox + 126 Bottom Letterbox.

Would anyone find it usefull if I also included the PAL vertical resolutions in the table, so none of the additional conversion math was necessary?

vhelp posted 2003 Sep 03 20:48

Hey DJRumpy.. pal :)

When you get the time..

I've got something that's bothering me something terible.. Shooting with a
DV CAM in 16:9 aspect ratio (AR)

My issue is what exactly is the AR ?? ..is it
* 1.778
* 1.85
* 2.35
* or some odd number ??

Right now, I'm experimenting for the hundreth time, but I'd like to know
w/out a doubt, what the AR is for these so called, "faked" 16:9 video from
DV cams.

Just so you know, I have a Sony TRV22, and it's a great cam, even in low
light, though I'm not saying it superb in it, but its better then the TRV19's
and TRV33's !!
Plus, you gotta apprecitae it's mini progressive mode. Can't beet a great
deinterlacer, w/ full field appreciation too :P

Please, help us DV guys out :x , unless you're not up to DV yet hehe :P

Thanks a bunch,
-vhelp

DJRumpy posted 2003 Sep 04 06:37

What resolution is the output, and does it include any letterboxing?

DJRumpy posted 2003 Sep 04 13:53

I've updated the tables to hopefully be a bit more readable.

vhelp posted 2003 Sep 04 18:44

Evening guys.

@ DJRumpy..

What resolution is the output, and does it include any letterboxing?

My resolutoin of my DV captures (transfers) are 720x480.

Some notes on my actual footage when taking Interlaced video through my lens..

* Output: 720x480
* Mode: 16x9 (this is "faked", where they squish/compress the image)
* Boarders: none. There are no black bars at all.. only video, x480 worth.

Some more notes...
When feeding directly to TV (RCA plugs) the video looks a tad fat.
But, there is some noticable distortion during this compressing of the video to
"fake" the 16x9 Aspect, but when encoded using 16:9, output looks perfect.

Right now, I'm experimenting on the various different ways to encodes (TMPG)
w/ 16:9 output for DV video home footage.
In TMPG's Source Aspect Ratio, the tricky part is working out the best
Aspect Ratio selection for DV source.. ie below:

* 4:3 525 Line
* 4:3 525 Line (NTSC 704x480) ...I've used this one sometimes
* 16:9 525 Line (NTSC)
* 4:3 Display
* 16:9 Display
* 2.11:1 Display

And then the Video Arrange Method:

* Center Custom size ... I've used this w/ a value of 704 x 400 for DV
* Full Screen
* Full Screen (keep aspect ratio)
* Full Screen (keep aspect ratio 2)

My ultimate goal is for future plan on a WS tv set.. but for the time being,
I'd like to encode my DV correctly, for both normal 4:3 TV (ie, my 13" tv) and also for WideScreen tv's (when I do finally get one)

Any help from your methods would greatly be appreciated from us DV camcorder
users/fans. Hopefully, you've got one by now :) ( ..hint, TRV22 :wink: )

Special note for those following..
This issue of setting proper Aspect Ratios for DV is for those taking footage
through the lens part of the DV cam in 16:9 mode.., but not w/ the feeding
sources like VCR; Cable; or Satellite source via PASS-THROUGH features
of those cams !!

Thanks for any assist,
-vhelp

DJRumpy posted 2003 Sep 04 19:25

If your video looks tall on a regular TV, it has no borders, then I'd say it's true 16:9 video. Since your telling me it's fullscreen, it would have to be 1.77:1 (16:9). You mentioned they look fat though, which doesn't sound right. When the video is played back, does the CAM automatically add letterboxing?

Assuming it is true 16:9, encode your video in TMPGenc, with the source set to '16:9 Display', and your output set to Center - Keep Aspect Ratio. If your burning to DVD, the DAR settings on the MPEG don't matter much, as the IFO + your DVD settings decide how widescreen video is handled during playback. The 'Center - Keep Aspect Ratio' setting will, however, center your widescreen on your display, and resize it if necessary to fit. You could actually use Fullscreen as long as your input AVI was 720x480. The Aspect Ratio should also be set to '16:9 525 Line' on the VIDEO tab.

With those settings, it should play back as letterboxed widescreen on a regular TV, and as fullscreen on a widescreen tv.

vhelp posted 2003 Sep 04 20:26

.
.
@ DJRumpy..

If your burning to DVD, the DAR settings on the MPEG don't matter much, as the IFO + your DVD settings decide how widescreen video is handled during playback.

What app are we (you) talking about on this.. as I'd like to give some actual
DVD athoring of these DV clips ??
I'm currently just burning w/ Nero v5.5.5.1 by checking SVCD compliancy (after
I MUX w/ bbMPEG using SVCD or DVD specs, as either one works fine, once
burned w/ Nero to a CDRW test disk)

On another note...
Ok, I just did another testing of the DV cams out to TV screen.

On the TV, what I ment was the the image looks like someone compressed
the scruntched the person in an elevator (left - right, squished to center)

All image as can be seen inside DV cams viewfinder can also be seen on the
TV screen, except for the above.

With those settings, it should play back as letterboxed widescreen on a regular TV, and as fullscreen on a widescreen tv.

Perfect! Superb!

Sorry if I misslead you incorrectly in my previous post :roll:

I'm now learning better techniques w/ my DV cam, and can almost see a
deffinate improvements in still scenes, ..as if done by Cinema devices :)

:idea: I was thinking about U/L 'ing a test sample for you to see what my TRV22
is producing for me, and using the AR discussed above, to see if the AR is
correct on anyone's Normal TV set, and Widescreen TV set for verification
purposes :roll: Anyways..

Thanks for the assist,
-vhelp

DJRumpy posted 2003 Sep 07 07:13

I was talking DVD authoring using SpruceUp, not SVCD, so disregard that comment.

On the TV, what I ment was the the image looks like someone compressed
the scruntched the person in an elevator (left - right, squished to center)

This means their 'Tall', which also means that yes, your video is true Widescreen. It doesn't matter how it got widescreen ( some cams simply chop off some of the top and bottom image area to get it, but the end affect still produces widescreen video ;) )

You can certainly post a screen grab, but I'd post it in the regular forum, or mail it to me, so I can examine the aspect. From everything you've given me, it sounds like 1.77 widescreen video.

vhelp posted 2003 Sep 07 09:37

@ DJRumpy..

I was talking DVD authoring using SpruceUp, not SVCD, so disregard that comment.

Yes.. ok I gotha.

As far as sample, yes, I'd end up posting it at my "VHELP's Samples.." thread
anyways :wink: and point you to it :wink:

I gotta another issue w/ 16x9 encodes though. I tried an experiement to
see if I could get WinDVD to play my 16x9 (AR 1:77) encode, and although
they play perfectly in 16x9 view under PowerDVD, they don't in WDVD.
Instead, they play fullscreen almost. What I mean, is that WDVD does NOT
stretch the window to a 16x9 view as PDVD does. So, it gives you the wrong
impression of the video, or squished video :( Anyways..
I tried make a VOB w/ DVDLab (had trouble w/ at first, but all is ok) and
when I played my 16x9 encoded VOB file inside WDVD, I got the same result..
incorrect viewing, but PDVD played it perfectly!!
BUT, one point to note, when I pop in the same DVD (commercial one) and
play them in my DVD-ROM undre PDVD and WDVD, the AR is displayed
correctly :shock: what is the secret to this, or what gives ?? ?? ??
I'm stumped by this 16x9 thing. I hope you understand what I'm talking
about here :)

Thanks for any input on this issue,
-vhelp

DJRumpy posted 2003 Sep 08 04:39

Now your talking about a dvd mpeg, and not an SVCD mpeg correct? What image area resolution does it use, and how much letterboxing? Also, use BitViewer to see what aspect ratio is set on the MPEG.

cuelie posted 2003 Sep 19 12:06

RJdumpy,
I have read your guide again and again and tried to apply to my situation but still got stuck.
My goal is to preserve the original avis video resolution when encoding to DVD ( I want to avoid resizing since I think that will degrade the video quality).
My source is 640x352 25pfs avi and i'm trying to encode to a DVD to watch on 4:3 TV. By reading your guide, here's what I think I should do in TMPG:
1. Video source 1:1VGA, full screen (keep aspect ratio)
2 MPEG stream: 720x480, aspect ratio 4:3.

Since you metioned in the guide that the play back width will be 480x1.33 =640, I thought this scheme will preserve my orginal resolution (640x352 video in a 640x480 physical frame). But what about the DVD standard width of 720. What will happen with the horizontal difference 720-640??? Why do I see a full 720width when i open the resulting MPEG2 clip in VirtualDub and WMP shows a 720x540 when playing it back?
I'm really confused. Please help.
Thanks

DJRumpy posted 2003 Sep 19 19:39

Resizing an AVI of that resolution to DVD will not cause any noticable degredation in quality. You should resize it to the full width.

If you insist on trying to keep the size as is, then you will have to add black letterboxing all around the avi to retain it 'as is', while producing a DVD compatible MPEG. What your asking for isn't really covered in my guide, which may help to explain your confusion. Since you want to retain the original resolution, then my guide serves you no purpose. Aspect ratio is irrelevant and resolution is irrelevant if you don't plan to change them during your process.

Onto your problem. The reason your output looks wrong is because of the settings you used in TMPGenc. Try 'Center - Custom Size' instead of 'Full screen (keep aspect ratio)'. Although I don't use TMPGenc, it should give you essentially what your looking for. You should end up with letterboxing on all sides.

cuelie posted 2003 Sep 19 20:24

DJRumpy
Thanks for the reply.
So you're saying that encoding the 640x352 AVI to a 720x480 4:3 display WILL NOT give a 640x480 video image? The width of the video will always be streched to 720? What about the height? Will TMPG resize it to 720/(whatever the original Divx clip is, in this case 640/352) to keep the aspect ratio intact?
I don't want to do a center clip. I just though I did something wrong and ended up with the different video size. Another funny thing is that the same version 9.0 of WMP in win2000 show 720x540 but in XP it shows 640x480. Any idea whay? What should I use to check the physical as well as image size of an MPEG2?
Thanks again

DJRumpy posted 2003 Sep 21 19:50

You should definately NOT use WMP. It's support of MPEG2 in regards to accurate information is poor at best. Use 'MPEG Properties', or 'AVI Codec' (find both in the TOOLS section). They will properly report size, bitrate, etc.

So you're saying that encoding the 640x352 AVI to a 720x480 4:3 display WILL NOT give a 640x480 video image? The width of the video will always be streched to 720? What about the height?

I'm not sure what your asking me. Your width will be whatever you resize it to. If you resize it to 720, then your width will be 720. I have a feeling your trying to describe something else, but we're losing something in the translation. You should resize the video to it's proper height. Say it's a 2.35:1 video, and your converting it to NTSC DVD, you would convert the vertical to NTSC 360, and encode as a 16:9 video. It would be automatically letterboxed on a 4:3 television. It this was going to a 4:3 media, like SVCD, you would resize it to 480x272, and add letterboxing to fill in the remaining vertical.

Will TMPG resize it to 720/(whatever the original Divx clip is, in this case 640/352) to keep the aspect ratio intact?

These types of questions aren't really covered in my guide. Your asking about encoder settings for TMPGenc, which isn't covered in the guide. To answer your question, your video will be resized, according to the settings you select in TMPGEnc. Specifically the Advanced tab - Video Arrange Method setting, and the output resolution settings you select. If you select 'full screen - keep aspect ratio', then tmpgenc will resize your image until either the width or height reaches the maximum allowed resolution (720, or 480 respectively), and then fill in the remaining space with letterboxing if necessary. If you don't want letterboxing, and you want the sides chopped off, select No Margin. Some time back, I posted a detailed description of what each setting does in TMPGenc, and what output you can expect. Search the forum to find it. Just let me know if you can't seem to find it, and I'll see if I can hunt it down.

cuelie posted 2003 Sep 22 10:59

DJRumpy,
I think I finally got a grip on this whole aspect ratio thing thanks to your post + guide. Switching to CCE also helps alot since I have to manually figure out the resizing thing myself to put in the .avs file. One final question, say I have a 640x272 avi file, resizing to 720x360 for 16:9 and 720x272 for 4:3 TV, which one will give better quality? I think 720x272 since the image will only 640 wide while palying back whereas 720x360 will be strech out to 852x360, am I right?
Thanks again.

DJRumpy posted 2003 Sep 23 11:33

You probably wouldn't notice a difference on a 4:3 TV, assuming your AVI is good quality. I would suggest you do the 720x360 resize. DVD is compatible with both 4:3 displays, and 16:9 displays, so if you decide to move to widescreen later on, you won't be stuck with a video that DOES look bad on a 16:9 display. ;)

Rogue3 posted 2003 Sep 24 21:11

So, according to your picture showing 60 pixels on top, if I want to make my 4:3 material anamorphic 16:9 I need to crop 60 pixels off the top and bottom? does it always have to be equal? Or can I do 58 top 62 bottom etc?

DJRumpy posted 2003 Sep 25 04:46

It doesn't have to be equal. You can crop different values, just make sure they are always in even number to avoid changing the field order. Other than that, the skies the limit. If your video is 4:3 (non widescreen), then I would simply convert it to 720x480, without cropping. I can't bare to see a movie chopped into pieces ;)

Rogue3 posted 2003 Sep 25 06:08

DJRumpy :

If the original material is 4:3 then wouldnt it distort on a 16:9 television unless you crop it?

DJRumpy posted 2003 Sep 25 06:29

No, remember in the guide, that the width of the material is irrelevant (which is why a CVD at 352x480 looks 'normal' on your television, rather than ultra tall and ultra skinny). The image from a dvd is always stretched edge to edge to the sides of your display according to the aspect ratio on the MPEG. Your video is 480 pixels high, with a 4:3 aspect ratio (1.333 decimal), so 480*1.333 = 640. Your video is resized to 640x480 on playback, wich fits your TV perfectly. Almost all 4:3 DVD's are encoded at 720x480, with a 4:3 aspect ratio. It's the proper way to do a fullscreen 4:3 DVD.

You can convert it to widescreen, and you are correct, you would take 60 pixels from the top, and 60 from the bottom but you would then resize the cropped image to 720x480 with no letterboxing (1.77 video has no letterboxing when it's encoded as widescreen).

vhelp posted 2003 Sep 25 18:38

Hi DJRumpy..

I've ben following along in silent mode for a while :)

I've ben reading your responses, and am somewhat confused, despite your
excellent guide. But, the problem is my NEW setup for my DV projects, and
not yours :)

You see, I am now back to shooting my DV footage in 4:3 mode (used to be
in 16:9 mode, but after dealing w/ saw-tooth artifacts, I had to turn back
around a bit, but it has turned out to be pretty good after all)

What I do is I shoot my footage in 4:3 mode, and then later on, I convert
the 4:3 to 16:9 for what I consider to be a very good compremise, as well
as good quality too!!

Ok, here is what I'm doing:

* DV CAM... Shoot footage in 4:3 mode
* Editing.. I crop top 60 pix and bottom 60 pix and then resize the now
...720x360 into 720x480.
* Encode... Then, in TMPG, I encode to a beutiful 16:9 MPEG-2 clips.

The above steps, if I have ben understanding your guide thus far, is a nice
looking 1:777 AR

However, I've now shortened this 60 pix to 64 instead, thus my new resolution
is 720x352. When I do this, I have perfect blackness (top and bottom) which
means, better quality all around. So my setup is now:

* Editing.. I crop top 64 pix and bottom 64 pix and then resize the now
...720x352 into 720x480.
* Encode... Then, in TMPG, I encode to a beutiful 16:9 MPEG-2 clips.

So, I did a test to see if my converted 4:3 to 16:9 would look the same when
played on my normal 13" TV set, and they did. I compared a 4:3, played
it, and then a 16:9, played it, and they both looke identical on screen, only
the the 16:9 had empty space (top/bottom black bars)

But, the only thing that I don't know, is how it will look on an actual 16:9
widescreen TV set :roll:

@ DJ..
If you have one, perhaps I could upload a small clip, and you could see
for yourself if it works or not.
.
.
Also, your wrote:

I can't bare to see a movie chopped into pieces

Actually, that all depends. As you were not clear what was being cropped..
ie, TV shows/movies vs. Home Movies shoot by DV cams, as in my case.
.
.
Baring in mind, the above, and why I convert 4:3 to 16:9, it doesn't matter
what my final output is to be, ie, cropping top/bottom 64 pix and converting
to 16:9 (aka, gutting the source) as long as it is Home Movies shot w/ a DV
cam, and YOU are the director, then what you don't know, is sure to not
hurt you, unless you see the actual 4:3 video from start to finish :)
I had to explain this to someone at work last week, (after I showed my video
clip as a demo, and they loved it) They only saw 16:9 widescreen on a 20"
TV monitor. What they saw was MY vision (just like Hollywood)
We are subject to THOSE that shoot movies for us to watch.

Anyways, this is my NEW perfered way of shooting DV video for 16:9 output
until I can get one of those $300 16:9 lens that take 16:9 video and puts it
correctly inside a 4:3 CCD. I'm saving up for this, I hope :)
But, in the mean time, I think my 4:3 to 16:9 conversions will do.. do you
agree w/ me ?? or have issues ?? Lets talk :)

-vhelp

DJRumpy posted 2003 Sep 30 13:27

Your methods should work perfectly. It's the exact way I would convert a 4:3 movie to 1.77 (if the desire struck anyway). When I said I can't bare to chop a movie up, it is only my personal preference. Many people prefer to crop a movie to make it fit a particular aspect ratio. It's also more common for people to crop to make a widescreen movie 4:3 fullscreen, while your going in the opposite direction ;)

In either case, your methods are sound, and will look fine on a widescreen telvision. I don't think a test is necessary, but if it will really make you feel better, I'm willing to burn a sample for my widescreen. Just PM me with a URL I can download it from. I'd rather not have you mail it to me, as differing mail size limits tend to make mailing attachments of the size were talking about problematic. :)

luvvbuzz posted 2003 Nov 23 17:33

i dont understand any of it, which is a shame cos i have quite a few widescreen dvds but only a full screen tv, so it gets annoying when i have to zoom the picture to watch it at any decent size. this looks to complicated to me, im no good at maths.

DRP posted 2003 Nov 23 21:38

Thanks for your guide. It explained a few things I didn't understand that enabled me to crop and resize my DVD-rip for displaying in another ratio without disrupting the aspect ratio.

I'm not very good at comprehending this aspect ratio stuff either - I always struggle with this part or it - but I think I've found a relatively easy way of working it out and getting it right this first time every time.

With no disrespect to your guide, there is another excellent guide located here

http://mitglied.lycos.de/sabinelmar/svcd/SVCDTips.html

which includes a utility called '(S)VCD design helper' which automatically does most of the critical mathematics for you at the press of a mouse button. It works perfectly for AVI files where there is no MPEG display aspect ratio involved, but once you've determined the *real* aspect ratio of an MPEG or VOB, you can use it here as well. It also automatically takes in account the TV overscan so you don't waste bits encoding parts of the picture that you're never going to see.

As an example, I ripped an anamorphic DVD this morning which was 720x576 with 140 pixels of letterbox black bars. I wanted to crop it for display as 16:9 on a 4:3 TV in XSVCD. I used your guide to determine that the real aspect ratio of the movie was (576 x 16:9 =) 1024x (576 - 140 =) 436.

I then just put 1024x436 into the input boxes in (S)VCD design helper along with the side crop dimensions I wanted of 249 (left + right) and pressed 'Calc' and it gave me the correct resize aspect ratio I needed of 672x400. Actually the 672 comes out as 448, but the program is written around standard SVCD sizes, so I just adjusted this for the full D1 XSVCD size encode I wanted to make - works just the same.

HTH someone.

DJRumpy posted 2003 Nov 24 13:23

The whole reason for this guide is to understand how to do the math, or o understand how and why the math works. If they want a tool, they can always get one from the TOOLS section that will do these calculations for them. ;)

Roderz posted 2003 Nov 24 13:38

Very comprehensive info.
now I think I understand how to do the math.
But now I let excel calc it all 4 me. feed the figures into MainConcept and perfect dvd's with correct displays!
Cheers vey much

sunmanking posted 2003 Nov 26 19:34

hello,

this is quite a peculiar case. so you might be interested in it.

i have a pal vhs capture from the tv. it's a film and it's letterboxed. i want to make a pal vcd (352*288).

the capture is at 352*288 (w*h) since i was interested in capturing at the same resolution as the pal vcd format.

using vdub and crop i learn that the real height (letterbox removed) should be 160. that is letterbox is on the top 64 on the botton 64, being that 128.

according to your guide, to remove letterboxing and keep the aspect ratio i should do the following:

352/288= 1.222

vcd display aspect ratio is 1.333 so...

288*1.333=384 width

384/1.222=314 heigth

that is: 384*314

now the letterboxing would be removed, wouldn't it?

however, our resolution is wider and taller than the pal vcd resolution (352*288)!!! how could it be? so what can i do here? since my main goal is removing the letterboxing AND following close to the vcd standard... if i input 384*314 to tmpgenc that will not output a standard compliant vcd at all.

what's more, tmpgenc let's you choose the aspect ratio. it is autodetected and in my case it has autodetected 4:3 625 line (PAL, 704x576). however this is not the real aspect ratio my video source has, as i have just explained above...

i am lost now... :(

please, any help would be welcome.

greetings,

sunmanking

DRP posted 2003 Nov 26 20:45

sunmanking :

As it's a capture then I would have thought that the MPEG aspect issues would not yet be a problem like it is when when you rip from an already MPEGed source like from a DVD. Your aspect ratio is simply as it would be if it was an AVI - 352/160 = 2.2:1

I would simply stick it in TMPGEnc as I would an AVI file and specify 4:3 for the aspect ratio with an encode size of 352x288 with a letterbox window within that of size 336x160 to maintain the right aspect ratio and allow for the TV overscan.

sunmanking posted 2003 Nov 27 02:09

hello,

As it's a capture then I would have thought that the MPEG aspect issues would not yet be a problem like it is when when you rip from an already MPEGed source like from a DVD.

well, i thought aspect ratio had to do with captures too :o not just with mpged sources.

now,

I would simply stick it in TMPGEnc as I would an AVI file and specify 4:3 for the aspect ratio with an encode size of 352x288

that is ok. just done.

with a letterbox window within that of size 336x160 to maintain the right aspect ratio and allow for the TV overscan.

here comes the problem. how can i make it with a letterbox window within that of size...??? i have played around with tmpgenc for a while but never had faced such an issue. i've had a good look at every option and setting and still don't know how to tweak it. could you please let me know? maybe you're referring the the cropping in vdub? but cropping would actually "erase" valuable" width image if we keep the source aspect ratio at 195x160, wouldn't it? or maybe you refer to resizing with vdub? but don't you think resizing would affect video quality a LOT? since it will be resized again in tmpgenc...

btw, you mention 336x160, that is an aspect ratio of 336/160=2.1 however, shouldn't it be 195x160=1.222 ? i mean, since the original capture aspect ratio is 1.222 (352*288) then 195x160 does keep the aspect ratio.

and last doubt... :?

thanks a lot for your reply.

greetings,

sunmanking

DRP posted 2003 Nov 27 03:04

sunmanking :

hello,

As it's a capture then I would have thought that the MPEG aspect issues would not yet be a problem like it is when when you rip from an already MPEGed source like from a DVD.

well, i thought aspect ratio had to do with captures too :o not just with mpged sources.

now,

I would simply stick it in TMPGEnc as I would an AVI file and specify 4:3 for the aspect ratio with an encode size of 352x288

that is ok. just done.

with a letterbox window within that of size 336x160 to maintain the right aspect ratio and allow for the TV overscan.

Please search the Guides on this site for one by author "ElmarK". He has done only one guide so it's easy to find. There is a PDF file on his site with a section in it dealing specifically with aspect ratios, how to work them out and what settings to put in TMPGEnc to make it all work. It answers all the questions you have posed here.

DJRumpy posted 2003 Dec 01 08:12

the capture is at 352*288 (w*h) since i was interested in capturing at the same resolution as the pal vcd format.

Even though your destination format is VCD, you should capture at a higher resolution. The reduction in size, when you resize it to VCD will actually help to reduce noise. It also gives you a conveniant excuse to pre-filter your capture as well, using a temporal or spatial smoother, to remove as much analog noise as possible. ;)

352/288= 1.222

vcd display aspect ratio is 1.333 so...

Not quite right. Remeber that these calculations are based on NTSC figures. To make them work for PAL, you have to first convert it back to NTSC. To find that for VCD, you would have to find the VCD format's full width. Since it has a vertical height of 240 (ntsc), and the VCD format supports only a 4:3 MPEG aspect flag, you would multiply 240x1.333 to get 320. This is the part that confuses people. The VCD format has a 352 width, but the math we're doing says it should have a 320 pixel width. Just remember that the width, just like the SVCD format's width, is pretty much irrelevant to our end product. The math still works. Moving on...

Next, we convert your PAL video's image area height of 160, to NTSC by dividing it by .8334. That gives us 134 rounded (160 / .8334 = 134). Now you can do the math.

320 / 134 = 2.38, which, when placed into the closest aspect ratio, is 2.35 (you'll rarely find one that comes out exactly to the aspect ratio values...human error, cropping, etc will usually keep it a decimal or two off the expected aspect ratio decimal value). Your video has a 2.35:1 aspect ratio.

Ok, quick recap (remember these use NTSC values).
Find true horizontal width: 240 vertical * 1.333 = 320
Convert your video's vertical to NTSC: 160 / .8334 = 134
Divide the width by video's vertical to find the aspect: 320 / 134 = 2.35

Since your using TMPGenc, the rest is simple. Start the Wizard in TMPGenc, and pick the PAL VCD template. Use the Browse button when prompted to browse to your AVI or AVS file. Select '4:3 625 line (PAL)' for your aspect ratio and click NEXT. The next wizard page will let you specify your CLIP options (to remove the letterboxing from the top and bottom of your video). If you haven't edited your source to remove the letterboxing, check the CLIP option and input your top and bottom crop values. The next page will let you set your bitrate. On the last wizard page, make sure you UNCHECK the option to 'Start Encoding Immediately' and click OK. Click the SETTING button, and then Advanced tab, and set the 'Video Arrange Method' to 'Center'. This will resize your video to fullscreen, cropping off the left and rigth sides automatically. Your output will be VCD compliant.

allvol posted 2004 Feb 11 12:46

I am in the process of converting a PAL Anamorphic (2.35:1) DVD to NTSC Anamorphic (2.35:1) DVD.

I have already converted the audo files from 25 fps length to 23.97 fps length. I have done the same with subtitles as well. I did a video transfer (sound and subtitles synced very nicely) but the aspect ratio was all screwed up.

Now I have found this thread. :D

The PAL Anamorphic DVD is 720x576. From what I read, its actual size (without borders) is 720x432? Now to encode for Anamorphic NTSC DVD and maintain the 2.35:1 aspect ratio, I would need to resize the video to 720x360 with 60 lines of black bars above and below to give 720x480? Or can I just resize from 720x576 -> 720x480 without removing bars and then adding them back?

DRP posted 2004 Feb 11 18:23

allvol :

No. That's not correct. If you're saying that the anamorphic letterboxing black bars top and bottom of the PAL DVD video amount to 144 pixels total (576 - 432), then the true width is not 720. The width is actually the display aspect ratio of the DVD - which will be 16:9 - multiplied by the video height *including* the letterboxing black bars.

Your true width is therefore 576 x 16:9 = 1024.

The true height is much simpler to work out. You just simply cut off the black bars and what you're left with is the true height = 432

The true aspect ratio is thus 1024 / 432 = 2.37:1[/quote]

ricky1756 posted 2004 Feb 11 20:46

Are you related to Dr. Shrink? Great guide

DRP posted 2004 Feb 12 02:25

ricky1756 :

Are you related to Dr. Shrink? Great guide

Umm, are you being sarcastic? I can't tell. No, I'm not related to a Dr. Shrink. What I posted wasn't meant as a guide. I was merely pointing out something I think the previous poster had got wrong. I'm sorry if you disagree. I had a great deal of trouble working out aspect ratios in MPEG files myself, but I think I now have a pretty good handle on it such that I very rarely make mistakes anymore.

There are plenty of guides already written on the subject which describe in much geater detail what I briefly offered.

ricky1756 posted 2004 Feb 12 07:05

no, i'm not being being sarcastic, im complimenting you, because you both did nice things for the video community, free of charge

allvol posted 2004 Feb 12 09:30

DRP :

[/quote]

Thanks. The 1024x432 is what would be displayed on a HDTV. However, when i look at the video in a video editor, the width is always 720. I assume that the HDTV stretches the width to the proper width of 1024.

So, essentially, the video should be resized to a height of 360. In the "file" the width will be 720 but its true width is 846?

I guess my question is do I need to resize the file from 720x576 to 720x480 or just cut 96 lines of black bar from the file? I am trying to convert from PAL Anamorphic to NTSC Anamorphic.

DRP posted 2004 Feb 12 18:10

Thanks. The 1024x432 is what would be displayed on a HDTV. However, when i look at the video in a video editor, the width is always 720. I assume that the HDTV stretches the width to the proper width of 1024.

So, essentially, the video should be resized to a height of 360. In the "file" the width will be 720 but its true width is 846?

I guess my question is do I need to resize the file from 720x576 to 720x480 or just cut 96 lines of black bar from the file? I am trying to convert from PAL Anamorphic to NTSC Anamorphic.

Okay. You want to go from PAL DVD to NTSC DVD right? I'm not actually an expert on doing that as I don't have a DVD-writer, but I do make SVCDs from DVD everyday, so hopefully I can offer you some kind of assistance.

Here's what I would do. Firstly, find out the true dimensions of your DVD source without any black bars - picture only. Every PAL DVD I've ever seen has dimensions of 720x576, Interlaced with Top Field First and most have a 16:9 display aspect ratio. Most also have additional letterboxing (black bars) to make them the wider aspect ratios of either 1.85:1 or 2.35:1 when they get displayed on a TV.

So. Your picture width is 16:9 x 576 = 1024 as I have already explained.

The height in your example is 576 - 144 of black bars = 432.

So, what you have now is a picture of 1024x432. Forget everything else and don't confuse yourself. You've done the hard bit. The rest is easy. Just treat it like an AVI file from here.

I would then shove that into TMPGEnc and specify an MPEG-2 size of 720x480 (NTSC size) with "Full screen maintain aspect ratio" selected, specify your other settings as you see fit and encode with the appropriate NTSC settings.

It would be more complicated if you wanted to crop it and/or allow for TV overscan, but you haven't asked about doing that so this is about it.

DRP posted 2004 Feb 12 18:28

Yes. That's right. I know it's confusing because I had great problems understanding it as well, but the *WIDTH* is unimportant. That 720 number is for a large extent meaningless. Try to forget about it. The *REAL* width is established from the HEIGHT. The height of the video is the important thing.

So, essentially, the video should be resized to a height of 360.

That would be the NTSC equivalent as I understand it yes. You don't need to specify this yourself though. You can just let TMPGEnc do it for you by selecting "Full Screen (maintain aspect ratio)"

In the "file" the width will be 720 but its true width is 846?

I can't figure out where you got that number from. The equivalent NTSC true width is worked out in exactly the same way as for PAL. It is the video height *including* all letterboxing multiplied by the display aspect ratio. Thus... 480 x 16:9 = 853

I guess my question is do I need to resize the file from 720x576 to 720x480 or just cut 96 lines of black bar from the file? I am trying to convert from PAL Anamorphic to NTSC Anamorphic.

I think you might be thinking that you can convert from one to the other by only cropping/resizing. I'm not sure as I'm not a DVD 2 DVD expert, but I don't think this is possible. I think you must re-encode and create an entirely new MPEG file with the new dimensions. I could be wrong though so hopefully someone else with expertise in this area will help you out. I was of the impression that you would need to re-encode the video again. I know I certainly do when I make SVCDs (which afterall are just slightly smaller DVDs anyway).

The only thing important about that 720 number is if you decide to do some cropping of that 720 "width" to remove black bars or to reduce the aspect ratio of the film as a whole, be aware that you will be cropping from that 720 dimension rather than from the true width of 1024, so you will need to compensate for that by a factor of 1024 / 720 = 1.42

DJRumpy posted 2004 Feb 14 08:54

No need to do any math when converting from PAL DVD to NTSC DVD. Since you are not changing any of the aspect ratios, then you can simply resize from 720x576 to 720x480. The only remaining steps, are to slow down the video to 23.976 fps, and to slow down the audio. This is one of the easiest types of conversions, becuase your keeping everything else the same in regards to D1 resolution, and aspect ratio.

Resize it, letterbox and all. ;)

JustSomeGuy posted 2004 Feb 15 12:42

If dvd has the following image dimension available:

720 x 480
704 x 480
352 x 480
352 x 240

The aspect ratio's of these are:

720 / 480 = 1.5:1
704 / 480 = 1.46:1
352 / 480 = .73:1
352 / 240 = 1.46:1

I don't see how these resolutions are used to derive the standard
aspect ratios of 4:3 16:9 2.11:1 etc...
Unless the pixels are not square...

Sulik posted 2004 Feb 15 13:10

Do not confuse Pixel Aspect Ratio and Display Aspect Ratio.

4:3 / 16:9 always refer to the display aspect ratio.
Pixels are rarely square, one example would be 4:3 display aspect ratio for a 640x480 frame -> pixels aspect ratio is 1:1 (square), and display aspect ratio is 4:3.

JustSomeGuy posted 2004 Feb 15 13:39

So if I download a divx avi file how do I determ what the pixel aspect ratio is so that circles are circles and squares are square on a 4:3 or 16:9 display?

irvie posted 2004 Feb 15 13:44

I am not sure if my problem is related to this topic. I extracted an MPG video from .bin and .cue files. TMPGenc DVD Author cannot open the mpg, saying that "the resolution 482x480 cannot be used in standard DVD." IS there a way to adjust resolution of MPGs so that TMPGenc will recognize the file and then able to author to a DVD?

Thank you for your help!

DRP posted 2004 Feb 15 18:49

JustSomeGuy :

So if I download a di