Ripping DVDs and Infuse

[icanhazmac]

All, I recently started using Infuse as Synology's DS Station was discontinued and I noticed that all of my ripped DVDs are showing in Infuse as 360p, see below:

Shouldn't all my wide screen DVDs be 480? No matter what I use for the rip (makemkv, mdrp) they all show the same thing. Is infuse reading this wrong as part of the metadata?

I am finding that ripping DVDs is some form of sorcery I have yet to master.

 

[Nermal]

If you open the file in VLC and press Cmd-I, what resolution does it show (Codec Details tab)?

 

[Boyd01]

That resolution suggests that the DVD was in cropped widescreen format. Standard definiton NTSC video is 480 x 720 pixels. For 4:3 material, this would be "squashed" to 480 x 640 to have the correct proportion on a screen with square pixels. Cropped widescreen material simply adds black bars above and below the image, which is why you're seeing 360 as a height. Better widescreen DVD's are "anamorphic", meaning they use all 480 vertical pixels and stretch the width to 853 pixels to provide the correct aspect ratio on the screen (for 16:9).

Depending on the actual format of the original movie, there still might be black bars to acheive a cinemascope aspect ratio (such as 2.35:1). So, what you're seeing is probably related to the format of the original DVD's but could also be affected by the software/settings you used to rip them.

 

[icanhazmac]

@Boyd01, thank you for that explanation.

The set I am messing with now are Extended Edition Lord of the Rings DVDs that are definitely from back in the day.

 

[icanhazmac]

More sorcery...

I used MakeMKV to rip the original DVD and Infuse shows it as 480p but will not play an .MKV without upgrading to their pro version. I then used MDRP to re-encode to MP4, once I do that Infuse again shows it as 360p.

So I started HandBrake to try it and found this:

Notice how the source (at the top) reads as 480 but just to the left of the screen shot it shows 2 resolutions at 360?!?!

Demons and devils I say!!!!!!!

 

[icanhazmac]

Also shown here under the dimensions tab, the source reads as 480 but the final dimensions at the bottom revert to 360 and also change the aspect ratio?!?!

 

[Nermal]

I forgot about NTSC. The video is stored on the DVD at 720x360, inside a 720x480 frame. In other words, there are 60* lines of "black bars" on the top and bottom of the image. Handbrake removes them from the output file because a computer is smart enough to not need them (whereas a traditional DVD player might stretch the image vertically until it fills the screen).

*Actually 58 and 62 respectively, for some reason.

 

[icanhazmac]

I forgot about NTSC. The video is stored on the DVD at 720x360, inside a 720x480 frame. In other words, there are 60* lines of "black bars" on the top and bottom of the image. Handbrake removes them from the output file because a computer is smart enough to not need them (whereas a traditional DVD player might stretch the image vertically until it fills the screen).

*Actually 58 and 62 respectively, for some reason.

Ah, that makes some sense! Many thanks!

 

[Boyd01]

Right.... at the top, it's just showing the DVD standard of 480x720 for 4:3 or 480x853 for 16:9. In reality, all DVD's are 480x720 but the width gets squashed to 640 for 4:3 or stretched to 853 for 16:9. And under Final Dimensions you can see it's actually a 2.35:1 aspect ratio, so black bars are added above and below to accomodate that.

I don't think DVD players vertically stretch the image, only horizontally. Computers will vertically stretch to fit though. And TV sets will have "zoom" settings that will stretch a cropped widescreen video to the full vertical height of the screen. The default would be to show cropped widescreen in a 4:3 frame (pillar-boxed) with black bars (letterbox) above and below.

I think the reason it says 718 instead of 720 is because there's a one-pixel wide black line at the right and left side of the image. Handbrake will automatically crop out any border around the image. I ripped over 1000 DVD's with Handbrake for my own library and those settings can get very confusing!

I also "cut my teeth" shooting widescreen SD video starting around 2002. The early "prosumer" DV cameras shot widescreen in the cropped format which really degraded the vertical resolution. A few years later, prosumer anamorphic widescreen DV camcorders became available. This was well before prosumer HD cameras came out. I had one of those early anamorphic DV cameras - the Sony PDX-10 - which was small but produced surprisingly high quality widescreen SD video. The other approach to shooting it was using an anamorphic lens with a 4:3 camera, which squashed the image optically. These were expensive and had a variety of issues.

I was a moderator at dvinfo.net back in those days and threads about 4:3 vs 16:9, cropped vs anamorphic, etc. would get very contentious (and eventually devolve into Sony vs Cannon, LOL). It was amazing how passionate people were about this back at the time, we handed out quite a few suspensions in those threads! 🤣

 

[Luke MacWalker]

View attachment 2463539

Also shown here under the dimensions tab, the source reads as 480 but the final dimensions at the bottom revert to 360 and also change the aspect ratio?!?!

I think you have your explanation on this screenshot: cropping is set on automatic and it will remove 58 (top) + 62 (bottom) pixels = 120 pixels. The original video is 480 pixels high including the black bars, so the re-encoded video will be 480-120 =360 pixels high. Mystery solved! 😉
(Note that 2 pixels will also be removed from the left)

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

OP, I know that you chose the Infuse option over the Apple Computers app discussed in the other thread but since you are playing with Handbrake, running your rips through HB to render an AppleTV format like HEVC will make the potential change from Infuse to using Channels very easy should you decide to try something else. Steps are:

1. Rip with makeMKV or similar.
2. Run through HB to generate an Apple-compatible HEVC file.
3. Tag the file in an app like MetaZ and/or Subler.
4. Store on a big fat external drive.
5. Drag and drop these files into the (Apple) TV app.
6. Turn on (once) "Home Sharing" to share media organized in #5 with all AppleTVs and other devices within your home.
7. Enjoy an all-Apple way (Computers app) to easily & quickly watch your media.

For your home movies referenced in the other thread, begin with Step 2 for processing those. And then see the tips in the other thread for organizing them by year for AppleTV so you can easily locate any specific video such as Christmas 2014 or Easter 2018 vs. 10 or 20 other files also called Christmas or Easter.

 

[phrehdd]

To the quick -
Consider another device for playback of your own files. Something that natively handles MKV. There are several and perhaps one fine option would be NVidia Shield TV (pro). It doesn't replace your ATV but adds value to your set up.

If you opt instead for a software converter, get one that provide lossless conversion and also know that ATV doesn't play all audio formats. Avoid converters that want to compress your files as they can lose details in the process.

There are plenty of YouTube reviews on players from ATV, Roku, Nvidia, Amazon Fire, etc.

 

[priitv8]

DVDs use interlaced video.
Widescreens are encoded in Anamorphic mode, hence displayed width is larger than stored width (non-square pixels).
Handbrake can handle it all and produce an appleTV compatible non-anamorphic progressive (de-interlaced) video.
PS the SD frame size and interlaced anamorphic video are imho the prime reasons why dvd video looks so much lower quality than blu-ray.

 

[phrehdd]

DVDs use interlaced video.
Widescreens are encoded in Anamorphic mode, hence displayed width is larger than stored width (non-square pixels).
Handbrake can handle it all and produce an appleTV compatible non-anamorphic progressive (de-interlaced) video.
PS the SD frame size and interlaced anamorphic video are imho the prime reasons why dvd video looks so much lower quality than blu-ray.

DVD look lower quality because they are lower resolution out the door. Blue Ray has its own issues of lack of consistency in transfers and different resolution masters (same with 4K). I have seen some better DVDs that while interlaced, when properly played, look impressive for 480i.

If one were to de-interlace, which method would you use? Bob, blend, (linear) interpolation, maybe motion adaptive? I am not trying to name drop but point out there is more to converting interlaced media. Handbrake might do okay but nearly always at a cost of video information.

 

[priitv8]

I agree that deinterlacing is a process that directly affects image quality.
I usually stick to the fastest on Handbrake. Some of them are remarkably slow.
Anamorphic approach also reduces horizontal resolution. Effect is very similar to horizontal resolution loss in Side-By-Side 3D encoding of 2 frames into a single video frame.
Or, if you remember VHS, despite having normal NTSC/PAL vertical resolution the image is still soft because horizontal resolution (number of pixels on a single line) is very low.