Some movies are in 4:3

[bp1000]

I spent quite some time backing up some DVDs which play on 16:9 on my DVD player / tv.

On apple tv they are coming out at 4:3

The tv zoom function distorts the picture and by default I see black bars either side.

I was just using the apple tv 2 preset in handbrake. Did I do something wrong or is there a setting on apple tv that can fix this?

Or do I need to re-encode all over again?

 

[Sedulous]

That is weird. What dimensions does the actual encoded file indicate? Does it look stretched out vertically?

 

[ashman70]

What aspect ratio do they play on your computer?

 

[bp1000]

They were recorded in 4:3

American Dad for example. Recorded in 4:3 but my DVD player automatically switches them to 16:9 when playing the DVD.

I understand handbrake has done it's job completely, but 4:3 looks quite crap on a Widescreen TV.

:s

 

[Sean Dempsey]

They were recorded in 4:3

American Dad for example. Recorded in 4:3 but my DVD player automatically switches them to 16:9 when playing the DVD.

I understand handbrake has done it's job completely, but 4:3 looks quite crap on a Widescreen TV.

:s

uh...

If something is recorded 4:3, there's no "switching" then to 16:9. If you're watching American Dad from a 4:3 recording, and it fills up a widescreen, it's zooming in on the picture and chopping off the top and bottom.

Handbrake can easily crop to any aspect ratio you want, but a 4:3 recording will always be 4:3.

 

[stordoff]

uh...

If something is recorded 4:3, there's no "switching" then to 16:9. If you're watching American Dad from a 4:3 recording, and it fills up a widescreen, it's zooming in on the picture and chopping off the top and bottom.

Handbrake can easily crop to any aspect ratio you want, but a 4:3 recording will always be 4:3.

It could also be stretching the image. Either way, maintaining the 4:3 image is the right thing to do (and most stuff isn't 16:9 anyway, so it's pointless to try and force everything to fit)

 

[bp1000]

Handbrake has done it's job, maintaining the 4:3 format

However it is quite annoying when watching it back on a widescreen tv.


I compared the rip to the DVD disc version. The DVD player will happily fit the image to the full screen without cutting anything off.

Apple tv doesn't touch or re-scale the image, the only option is to use a zoom preset on my TV which chops off a lot of the picture.


Is there anyway around this, even stretching in handbrake to match the behaviour of the DVD player... must be better than the awful cropping / zoom feature on my plasma.

 

[bp1000]

Well i set handbrake picture settings to 1024 and preserve ratio and i now have widescreen

Yes it is stretching the image but it's a damm sight better than the TV zoom i was using before and to my taste the 4:3 on a widescreen looks really rubbish.

I've saved it as a preset now and will use it on all 4:3 footage, i hope that i won't run into problems.

 

[roidy]

I know purists will say that 4:3 material should be watched at 4:3 but I'm like you, I like to stretch my media to fit the whole screen, these are the settings I use depending on weather the video is PAL or NTSC.

 

[Sean Dempsey]

4:3 purists? Why would you want to stretch out a 4:3 image so people look all fat and short like a funhouse mirror.