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Can I force the video ratio to 4:3 output in SOUT?

Posted: 02 May 2010 23:21
by Ken Butcher
Can I force the video ratio to 4:3 output in SOUT when transcoding? My video stream in is 4:3 BUT out is a 1:1 square box.

VLC is receiving a standard TV rectangle h264 stream and transcoding "SOUT" but is coming out a square box, People are tall and skinny. Can I force the video ratio to 4:3 output in SOUT?

I am now streaming HTML5 live to iPhone, iPad and PCs!! :D But the video is square :(

This may not be a platform specific so I am also asking here. Many views no answer in 3 weeks on OSX list.

Thanks in advance!

Earlier post with all the details:
I have a square aspect ratio on an h264 stream that is captured by Quicktime broadcaster, then transcoded by VLC, and then segmented for iPhone.

Points of interest:
- I am capturing with QTB and sending the stream as a unicast to 127.0.0.1:5432
- Then I export a "meeting.sdp" file containing the stream settings so vlc can receive the stream.
- I "Advanced Open" that "meeting.sdp" file with VLC and treat as pipe and stream by UTP to 127.0.0.1:50000 , (transcoding the video to h264 and not transcoding the audio, setting the h264 codec to use "Access unit delimiters" in the prefs)
- Apple "Media Segmenter" receives the UTP 127.0.0.1:50000 stream from VLC, chops it up and sends it to Apache to serve.
- wa la , I am streaming html5 video to our iPhones and iPads !!!
- BUT the aspect ratio is 1:1 square. the 4:3 source is being squeezed to tall and skinny 1:1

While troubleshooting:
- When I use QTB to unicast or multicast streams directly to QT clients all is fine, 4:3 aspect ratio (I create an .sdp file in QTB and send it to the QT clients to play)
- Temporarily with VLC I "PLAYED" instead of transcoding the QTB stream, it played at 1:1 until I manually changed it to 4:3 in the VLC player "Video -> Aspect-ratio" menu.

So, I can force VLC to "play" it in 4:3, but I need (and do not know) to force it into 4:3 when transcoding and streaming. It always comes out 1:1 square.

Any Ideas? I have spent days looking before I asked.

Thanks, Ken

Re: Can I force the video ratio to 4:3 output in SOUT?

Posted: 03 May 2010 07:16
by Jean-Baptiste Kempf
Can you sahre your transcoding file?

Re: Can I force the video ratio to 4:3 output in SOUT?

Posted: 03 May 2010 08:18
by Ken Butcher
I made a little page and streamed some random tv to it for a bit. It should still show you the last few 10 second slices of the stream.

http://media.wolhawaii.com/live/ken.html

I will take it down after after a while when you are done viewing it, I do not want to push my fair-use rights.

Thanks! Ken