The VideoLAN Forums

Hi Experts,

I have a DVD here where some titles have 16:9 aspect rations and others have 4:3.

When I play the DVD in a pretty old DVD player software, all titles will be shown with the correct aspect ratio. In VLC 0.8.6d, every title will be shown 16:9.

Q1: I have figured how to correctly transcode titles which are 4:3 but are displayed 16:9 correctly (yuck!). However, how can I expand titles which are really 16:9 such that they will be 4:3 with black stripes on top and bottom?

Q2: Is there a setting which makes VLC detect the real aspect ratio, because it must be somewhere on the DVD, because the other software gets it right?

Thanks!

The aspect ratio is to do with the pixel aspect-ratio (from my understanding anyway). For anamorphic DVD's (which all technically are), "16:9" PAL DVDs have a pixel aspect ratio of 1.33:1. The actual video resolution is 720x576 (5:4), however VLC stretches the video to 1024x576 (16:9). For 4:3 DVDs the video (should) be stretched to 768x576. The same applies of NTSC DVDs of 720x480 (3:2), expect with slightly different ratios.

The black strips are there because the DVD-Video format is limited to a maximum anamorphic video aspect-ratio of 16:9, and so any higher (e.g. 2.35:1) the video has to be shown letterboxed with black at the top and bottom of the video.

VLC should auto detect the aspect ratio (this is located in the *.vob - Video OBject file) - commercial DVDs should playback correctly certainly. If not then you can force the aspect ratio by going to "Video >> Aspect-ratio" etc., or try resetting you preferences if commerial DVDs are also not displayed correctly.

Cheers, Arite.

The black strips are there because the DVD-Video format is limited to a maximum anamorphic video aspect-ratio of 16:9, and so any higher (e.g. 2.35:1) the video has to be shown letterboxed with black at the top and bottom of the video.

So can I transcode a 16:9 video to 4:3 without losing parts of the picture, meaning by adding space vertically? Because I want to upload those 16:9 videos to a service which assumes 4:3 for converting them to Flash.

VLC should auto detect the aspect ratio (this is located in the *.vob - Video OBject file) - commercial DVDs should playback correctly certainly. If not then you can force the aspect ratio by going to "Video >> Aspect-ratio" etc., or try resetting you preferences if commerial DVDs are also not displayed correctly.

Problem is that single titles on the same DVD differ, and VLC doesn't notice it. It's not a commercial DVD. It's a camcorder DVD where I recorded some scenes 4:3 and others 16:9. VLC will play them all 16:9.

Problem is that single titles on the same DVD differ, and VLC doesn't notice it. It's not a commercial DVD. It's a camcorder DVD where I recorded some scenes 4:3 and others 16:9. VLC will play them all 16:9.

In more detail: VLC 0.8.6d PLAYS them all 16:9 but TRANSCODES them correctly so while I'm happy with that, it's still a bug I guess.

You can add Video padding in VLC. To do this go to:
Settings >> Preferences... >> Stream output >> Sout stream >> Transcode

Then tick the "Advanced options" tickbox (bottom-right of window). Enter values for where it says "Video padding (top)" and "Video padding (bottom)". For example, for a video of 1024x576 (16:9) to make it 4:3 you would want it to be 768, so "96" above and "96" below. Then press "Save".

If it transcodes correctly then that is fine, although may be useful if it doesn't.

Cheers, Arite.

You can add Video padding in VLC. To do this go to:
Settings >> Preferences... >> Stream output >> Sout stream >> Transcode

Then tick the "Advanced options" tickbox (bottom-right of window). Enter values for where it says "Video padding (top)" and "Video padding (bottom)". For example, for a video of 1024x576 (16:9) to make it 4:3 you would want it to be 768, so "96" above and "96" below. Then press "Save".

Thanks so much Arite!