PAL wide screen capture size

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Zippity

683 posts

Ultimate Geek

#24877 5-Aug-2008 16:37

With the arrival of wide-screen tv, I obviously need to adjust my capture format profile to reflect the 16:9 aspect.

Can anyone advise what capture size I should be using?

Previously, I have used 720 x 576 for recording and burning onto DVD, but now, any wide-screen film is horribly squashed

I am using a Leadtek WinFast TV 2000 XP Expert TV Tuner

ZollyMonsta

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#154389 5-Aug-2008 17:08

720x576 is fine. You'll need to ensure your DVD project is set to 16:9 so your dvd player knows it's a widescreen programme and display it correctly.

Cheers,
Grant

Check out my LPFM Radio Station at www.thecheese.co.nz - Now on iHeart Radio, TuneIn and Radio Garden

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Zippity

683 posts

Ultimate Geek

#154394 5-Aug-2008 17:24

Thanks for replying, but how, or where do I change those settings?

I can'r find where to make the adjustments :(

ZollyMonsta

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#154405 5-Aug-2008 18:04

Are you using the built in write-to-disc feature in the Leadtek software? If so, I'm not sure where (or if it has) that setting is.
Or are you using a seperate DVD writing programme to save the files to DVD?

Check out my LPFM Radio Station at www.thecheese.co.nz - Now on iHeart Radio, TuneIn and Radio Garden

As per the usual std disclaimer.. "All thoughts typed here are my own."

Zippity

683 posts

Ultimate Geek

#154412 5-Aug-2008 18:22

The recorded video is saved directly to the HDD on my PC via the TV tuner card.

No matter what programme I use to playback the recorded video clip, it appears squashed - therefore it has to be the 720 x 576 capture format that is at fault.

No??

The only options available to me using the MPEG-2 Codec are:

192x144
352x288
384x288
384x576
720x576
758x576

ZollyMonsta

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#154419 5-Aug-2008 18:43

720x576 is the standard resolution. It doesn't matter if its 4:3 or 16:9.

The playback software needs to play it back in 16:9 aspect ratio. More than likely your TV card isn't recording the file with any 'flags' as such to tell your playback software it's in 16:9.

In your playback software (depending what programme it is) you should be able to select 16:9 under it's aspect ratio settings.

If there's no flag or desriptor set in the recording to tell the program it's a 16:9 recording, it will treat it as a 4:3 recording.

Cheers,
Grant

Check out my LPFM Radio Station at www.thecheese.co.nz - Now on iHeart Radio, TuneIn and Radio Garden

As per the usual std disclaimer.. "All thoughts typed here are my own."

motogpnz

112 posts

Master Geek

#154517 6-Aug-2008 00:46

Zippity: The recorded video is saved directly to the HDD on my PC via the TV tuner card.

No matter what programme I use to playback the recorded video clip, it appears squashed - therefore it has to be the 720 x 576 capture format that is at fault.

No??

The only options available to me using the MPEG-2 Codec are:

192x144
352x288
384x288
384x576
720x576
758x576

Zippity, I was confused about this as well when I first started mastering DVDs from a DV camera, because I was thinking in terms of computer pixels which are square, but video ones aren't necessarily so. The PAL DVD standard is 720x576, which is roughly 4:3 if the pixels are square. When a DVD is mastered in 16:9 the signal is still 720x576 but a flag is included that tells the display to stretch the horizontal pixels to give a 16:9 aspect ratio. Most widescreen TVs or projectors have a setting you can change between auto (determined by flag) and user defined, either 4:3 or 16:9. There are other standards like 384x576 which again contain a flag that tells the display how much to stretch the horizontal dimension to achieve either 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratio.

If you want to see for yourself, have a look at ALT TV (Sky ch65). Some of their music videos have been uploaded to the server in 16:9 but the signal is transmitted without a widescreen flag so the images look streched when viewed in 4:3. If you change your TV to widescreen manually they display correctly, but then the next video looks squashed down until you change back to 4:3 again.

Most DVD mastering software like Roxio or Nero will ask whether the project you are creating is 4:3 or 16:9 and set the flag accordingly. If your capture software doesn't have this option you will need to adjust your TV manually.

Zippity

683 posts

Ultimate Geek

#155379 9-Aug-2008 11:03

Moto

You were on the right track

The answer was simple, as this reply from another forum indicated:

"Just use DVD Patcher and "patch" 4:3 to 16:9 on your original mpeg 2 file
www.videohelp.com/tools/DVDPatcher

Then load to TMPGenc author, and so on as always"

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