1920x1080 to 1080x720

[Sperkowitz]

Please correct me if I am wrong, but if I wanted to convert a video from 1920x1080 (1080p) to 720p I would use 1280x720 resolution? Or is the ratio of the two different? Each time I try to convert a video with Handbrake it converts it to 1280x688. Not a huge problem and I cannot tell the difference of 40 lines, but it's bugging me it's not doing 1280x720 like I keep telling it to do.

[Smithcraft]

I'm thinking you need to turn off cropping, 'cuz I'm guessing that what you are transcoding has an aspect ratio higher than 1.78. Without an encoding log it's impossible to know what's really going on.

SC

[Sperkowitz]

I just turned on logging. And I think you hit it right on about the cropping. It was set to automatic. I manually set everything to zero. Will encode something while at work and see if it works properly later. But I'm pretty sure that was the problem.

[nightstrm]

As long as it is cropping correctly (i.e. the 40 pixels are black bars), I'd suggest leaving it set to automatic. No reason to waste bits encoding a black bar.

[Sperkowitz]

Interesting. I didn't think about the black bars. This might explain why some movies are coming out correctly and some are not. Now, wouldn't cropping the black bars skew the ratio of the movie? Or is it cropping everything to keep the ratio the same (left and right)? Please excuse me and my non-understanding of this.

[TedJ]

The matting (black bars) is only required for DVD and Blu-ray players; they only understand 4:3 and 16:9 ratios - all other players should be able to scale your picture without affecting aspect ratio.

[Smithcraft]

If the movie has a ratio of 1.78 then it's going to be fine. If a movie has a ratio of 2.35 then cropping out the black bars is going to change it from 1.78 to 2.35.

SC

[Sperkowitz]

Ah! Thanks everyone.

I encoded a movie this morning with cropping off and it preserved everything. Went back to look at my other files and noticed most, and sometimes all, of the back bars were gone with still excellent quality. I'm going to stick with automatic.