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Scrubs for ATV [Widescreen]

simontarr

simontarr

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 4, 2006
414
0
England
Hi Guys,

I've decided to get an ATV now that Take 2 is out.

I've got all the Scrubs box sets on DVD but want to rip and catalogue them on iTunes ready for when I get the ATV. Problem is, they are all 'square' by default. If I try and rip them with Handbrake, they come out at 704 x 570 which is 'square' and they look a bit silly on my widescreen 720p TV (big black bars either side)

Currently I'm using my 360 to see what my rips look like on my TV and unless I change the 360 settings to 'stretch' they will stay in their original format.

I want the episodes to be widescreen (like they are if they are on Sky, for example) Can anyone tell how this can be achieved, either through the ripping process or by certain options that are on the ATV. Because I don't have one yet, I can't fiddle with the settings.

Hopefully you get what I mean- if not I will take some photos and post them.

Thanks for your help
 
I've got all the Scrubs box sets too. I encoded them for tv as well. There are really only two ways to achieve what you want.

1. Crop the picture, thus losing much of the top and bottom of the picture, but resulting in the proper 16:9 ratio
2. Stretch the image to the proper 16:9 ratio, thus not losing any of the picture, but resulting in significant distortion

What I did was somewhat of a compromise. I cropped 20-30 pixels off the top and bottom of the picture, thus losing a small amount of the image, but making the video closer to the proper 16:9 ratio. Using this method, I have a video that almost fills the screen of the TV, but has absolutely 0 distortion, and hasn't lost a significant amount of the image off the top and bottom.

You could also use a compromise that combines #1 and #2
 
Thanks for the info student101 I will give this a go now.

I kinda realised after I posted that there was no real way to make the episodes 'widescreen' without either stretching or cropping, but it's good to know what you done and what you thought gave a good resulting image.

Is your TV HD?
 
simontarr said:
Is your TV HD?
Click to expand...

Of course. ;)

By the way. My optimal scrubs HandBrake setting is:

Toggle Presets
Click AppleTV preset, then,
go into "Picture Settings"
Unclick "anamorphic"
Unclick "Keep aspect Ratio"
Custom crop 26 pixels each off top and bottom
720x480 image size
Deinterlace: Slow
Denoise: Weak
then click the + on the preset bar and save preset as "Scrubs", Picture Settings set to "Current", click "Add"
Then, for each episode you can just click your "Scrubs" preset button!
 
You Sir, are most kind!

I've saved the preset and done a few episodes...looks absolutely fine from here.

Thanks for your time and help!
 
And to think only a few years back people were complaining about the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen... :p

My biggest problem with ripping TV episodes is the audio tends to get out of sync or the interlacing makes it look odd. If I deinterlace the audio gets out of sync, if I don't deinterlace then the picture looks funny. I might try your settings though and see what happens.
 
SilentPanda said:
And to think only a few years back people were complaining about the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen... :p

My biggest problem with ripping TV episodes is the audio tends to get out of sync or the interlacing makes it look odd. If I deinterlace the audio gets out of sync, if I don't deinterlace then the picture looks funny. I might try your settings though and see what happens.
Click to expand...

I've ripped lots of TV shows, Scrubs, Friends, King of Queens, The Office, etc. Most of them are heavily interlaced. I always deinterlace them in Handbrake and I've never experienced a problem with the audio being out of sync.
 
student101 said:
I've ripped lots of TV shows, Scrubs, Friends, King of Queens, The Office, etc. Most of them are heavily interlaced. I always deinterlace them in Handbrake and I've never experienced a problem with the audio being out of sync.
Click to expand...

Same thing here. I have ripped over 1500 episodes of TV and never really had an out of sync problem from deinterlacing
 
I'll never understand this.....maybe I am a purest, but why would you alter content like that just to arbitrarily fit a tv screen, by choice?!

Whats next? Vertical Pan&Scan?! uggggggg

-pj
 
I am having the same problems as the OP. I want to rip Friends DVDs to be widescreen. Student101 - how far off of widescreen format is the picture when cropping 26 pixels and how many pixels need to be cropped to get full widescreen format?

I have also noticed the audio sync problem when ripping other TV shows - however I wasn't using the de-interlace function.
 
SilentPanda said:
I don't resize/crop the video... that's just crazy IMO.
Click to expand...

+1

Are letterboxed or pillarboxed pictures SO distracting that we have to go to such lengths? Just accept that the picture doesn't perfectly fill the entire screen and enjoy the show! It would bother me more to know I'm not seeing everything as it was originally intended.
 
nebsta said:
I am having the same problems as the OP. I want to rip Friends DVDs to be widescreen. Student101 - how far off of widescreen format is the picture when cropping 26 pixels and how many pixels need to be cropped to get full widescreen format?

I have also noticed the audio sync problem when ripping other TV shows - however I wasn't using the de-interlace function.
Click to expand...

I don't know how to answer the first question. I mean, do you want a measurement in inches? That would be pointless because you might not have the same size TV as me, plus some TV's are more aggressive at "overscanning" the image too. Let's just say it's about halfway in between 4:3 and 16:9. So, the black bars on the side are about half the size as they used to be.
As for the second question, I'm really not sure. Using HandBrake you will just have to keep cropping and expanding the image until you get a picture that is 720x400. I imagine it would be somewhere around 40-50 pixels. But be warned that you will lose a significant amount of the picture doing this.
 
pj4533 said:
I'll never understand this.....maybe I am a purest, but why would you alter content like that just to arbitrarily fit a tv screen, by choice?!

Whats next? Vertical Pan&Scan?! uggggggg

-pj
Click to expand...

To each his own, I guess. I do it occasionally for several reasons.
One is because the huge black bars are distracting for me; I can deal with it on occasion, but for shows like Scrubs that I watch over and over again, it can get annoying. Secondly, I paid good money for a big, widescreen TV, and I hate to see all that real estate go to waste. Thirdly, the pillarboxing kind of gives the illusion that the action on screen is taking place far off in the distance, removing much of the bars brings it up close and personal. Also, the amount I crop is really entirely negligible; seriously, no perceivable amount of the picture is lost. Plus, the result is never permanent. I own these videos, so if I don't like it, I can redo it. My Mac Pro rips through them fast enough.
 
Just a quick update:

I've found that if I rip Scrubs using Handbrake at 720 x 410 it fits my Samsung TV fullscreen by default, without looking distorted. A tiny bit of the image is lost at the top and bottom, but nothing that would ever distract.

I haven't experienced any issues regarding out of sync audio or interlacing.
 
student101 said:
To each his own, I guess. I do it occasionally for several reasons.
One is because the huge black bars are distracting for me; I can deal with it on occasion, but for shows like Scrubs that I watch over and over again, it can get annoying. Secondly, I paid good money for a big, widescreen TV, and I hate to see all that real estate go to waste. Thirdly, the pillarboxing kind of gives the illusion that the action on screen is taking place far off in the distance, removing much of the bars brings it up close and personal. Also, the amount I crop is really entirely negligible; seriously, no perceivable amount of the picture is lost. Plus, the result is never permanent. I own these videos, so if I don't like it, I can redo it. My Mac Pro rips through them fast enough.
Click to expand...

Totally agree- black bars at the top and bottom are fine IMO but bars at the side...well, like student101 says, the action feels way off in the distance.
 
If i understand right then you want scrubs episodes online or if you want scrubs episodes for watch so you can visit this link today.and you find all scrubs episodes.


Click here
 
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