Windows Media Player Won't Play Ripped 1080p

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eracode

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#83843 22-May-2011 08:23

I have ripped a Blu Ray music video disc (which I own and will only use the ripped stuff myself at home) to my PC, retaining the original resolution 1920x1080 (ie. 16:9). The details of the ripped file confirm that it is 1920x1080 but, when I play it back on the PC, it plays as a horizontally squashed 4:3 picture. I've tried both xvid and H.264 formats (even though I'm not sure what all that means) with the same result. The monitor I'm using is 1920x1080 and when I just play the Blu Ray disc, the image is fine.

I have tried changing some settings in WMP and have googled to try and see if there is a solution but can't see anything that makes sense to me. I have seen some references to 'installing codecs' but nothing that I can actually use.

Would be grateful for any straightforward explanation and a fix if it exists.

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toyonut

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#472085 22-May-2011 10:14

What program did you use to rip the disc?
There will likely be a setting in there that will tell the program that this is a widescreen video and to rip it in widescreen, look for an aspect ratio switch or something talking about anamorphic widescreen. Go with H264, encoding will take a little longer, but you should retain most of the original quality.

*Edit* A possible reason for the file still being 1920x1080 even though it is visually not is that because the program is not encoding to 16x9, it is putting black bars or the outside of the video to make up the space. Just make sure 16x9 and widescreen settings are definitely applied in encoding program.

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gehenna

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#472153 22-May-2011 10:52

Install the Windows Codec Pack or use VLC. WMP cannot play non-standard formats by default.

eracode

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#472407 22-May-2011 15:57

paulmilbank: What program did you use to rip the disc?
There will likely be a setting in there that will tell the program that this is a widescreen video and to rip it in widescreen, look for an aspect ratio switch or something talking about anamorphic widescreen. Go with H264, encoding will take a little longer, but you should retain most of the original quality.

*Edit* A possible reason for the file still being 1920x1080 even though it is visually not is that because the program is not encoding to 16x9, it is putting black bars or the outside of the video to make up the space. Just make sure 16x9 and widescreen settings are definitely applied in encoding program.

I used 'PavTube Blu Ray Ripper' and it works well. Ripped file is definitely 1920X1080.

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eracode

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#472410 22-May-2011 16:06

gehenna: Install the Windows Codec Pack or use VLC. WMP cannot play non-standard formats by default.

Thanks - can you tell me a good place to get the codec pack from? It seems there are heaps of them and also lots of warnings about also getting a virus with it. Which codec pack should I get?

I downwloaded and tried VLC. It opens the 1920*1080 (16:9) file as 4:3 but will happily change it to 16:9 fullscreen if I change the aspect ratio in the video settings. The only problem is that there seems to be no way to permanently save the video settings and next time I play the file it's back to 4:3. Very frustrating. I have googled widely on how to save the settings but came up with nothing. That's why I have gone back to trying to modify WMP with the codec pack you recommended.

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toyonut

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#472416 22-May-2011 16:10

Are you running Win 7?
If not, I wouldnt expect it to play at all as windows wont have the codecs for it. Try Vlc or playing it on another computer or xbox or ps3 to see if it works. You could also try the codec pack suggested above.

I looked at the instructions and and cant see anything that would set aspect ratio. I dont have the program to look any further.

You could also try just rip the disc to hard drive and put it through handbrake on normal or high profile setting to see if that works any better.

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#472471 22-May-2011 17:03

Say if I was running on XP, would there by any chances be available codecs for it apart from the aforementioned media players @paul milbank?

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toyonut

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#472530 22-May-2011 18:18

http://www.codecguide.com/features_mega.htm

I use Klite on win 7 and it seems to work well, plays everything through media player. It should work fine for XP too.

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#472534 22-May-2011 18:28

@eracode, it is a problem with the way you are ripping to my mind.
try follow these instructions
http://www.pavtube.com/guide/rip-anamorphic-blu-ray-to-hdtv-blu-ray-ripper.html
you want the instructions under this heading.
C. Use the 2.4:1 OAR (original aspect ratio) of Blu-ray Disc.

This should hopefully tell the software to rip in the correct original aspect ratio and stop it putting black bars on the side to bulk out the picture to 1920x1080.

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eracode

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#472548 22-May-2011 18:58

paulmilbank: @eracode, it is a problem with the way you are ripping to my mind.
try follow these instructions
http://www.pavtube.com/guide/rip-anamorphic-blu-ray-to-hdtv-blu-ray-ripper.html
you want the instructions under this heading.
C. Use the 2.4:1 OAR (original aspect ratio) of Blu-ray Disc.

This should hopefully tell the software to rip in the correct original aspect ratio and stop it putting black bars on the side to bulk out the picture to 1920x1080.

Thanks - but it's not putting black bars on the side. The source is 1920x 1080 and the output file is 1920x1080. The OAR is 1.78:1 i.e. 16:9 and the output file is the same.

I have found a solution. If I run the Pavtube output file through Handbrake and convert it from '1920x1080' to 1920x1080, the resulting file opens in WMP and VLC in fullscreen 16:9 as wanted. I think there's some sort of anamorphic process going on in Pavtube Blu Ray Ripper that is not able to be controlled - the controls are fairly basic and there's no anamorphic settings anywhere. Running the Pavtube ripped file through Handbrake with Anamorphic set to 'none' sorts it out.

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toyonut

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#472556 22-May-2011 19:11

glad you found a solution.

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eracode

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#472579 22-May-2011 19:40

paulmilbank: glad you found a solution.

Appreciate your help on this.

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toyonut

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#473079 23-May-2011 17:01

All good. I would just recommend looking through that last link for where the option is to maintain aspect ratio in the program. It should hopefully save you doing two encodes.

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