force display aspect ratio to always be 16:9 no black bars

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KmCrct
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Joined: Mon Jan 23, 2017 8:29 pm

force display aspect ratio to always be 16:9 no black bars

Post by KmCrct »

More of a general question. I want all encodes regardless of source size to output with a default display aspect ratio of 16:9. I want all black bars cropped or permanently removed so that a 480p or any other resolution file is automatically played back with a full 16:9 picture and no bars or boxing.

What can I write in the extra options box to force this condition??

when I playback using gom or VLC and switch aspect ratio to 16:9 the file generally plays back as desired but I would rather not take this extra step and have the file tell the software to display this way by default.

I am running windows 10 and HB 1.0.2
I dont think including a log would matter much as this question is general and is irrelevant with respect to any particular file.
Woodstock
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Joined: Tue Aug 27, 2013 6:39 am

Re: force display aspect ratio to always be 16:9 no black bars

Post by Woodstock »

Handbrake is not the tool you are looking for.
KmCrct
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Joined: Mon Jan 23, 2017 8:29 pm

Re: force display aspect ratio to always be 16:9 no black bars

Post by KmCrct »

well, I suppose that explains why I have these issues. Do you know what I could use to edit these particulars of a file . Is there a way to go into an MP4 and change its DAR without re-encoding ?
Woodstock
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Re: force display aspect ratio to always be 16:9 no black bars

Post by Woodstock »

There are tools to edit the aspect ratio of the file in the MP4 header, yes.

The problem if that, assuming the player actually respects it (I know VLC does, because it does some REALLY screwy things if it is wrong), the video still won't necessarily be 16x9 (AR of 1.78). A lot of content is as much as 2.4 AR, or as little 1.33. Force-fitting that into 1.78 with no letterboxing means either distortion, or clipping off part of the picture.

Remember the disclaimer on movies broadcast on TV before HD, "content has been edited to fit your screen"? Proper editing isn't fixed cropping. And handbrake really can only do fixed cropping.

And let's say you decide fixed cropping is acceptable to you. The handbrake GUI does not upscale video. You would end up with 640x360 video from DVDs (60 pixels off the top and bottom, whether there was picture there or black bars), and the player would upscale that to whatever resolution the screen uses. And that 2.4 AR Bluray? That would get cropped to 1420x800 instead of 1920 (150 pixels off each side).

Oh, and did I mention anamorphic (non-square pixels) on DVD? Have to take that into account.

If that is acceptable to you, you COULD program presets with manual cropping, for each of the (several) common formats.

(that's the long answer to why handbrake isn't the right tool for this job)
andrewk89
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Re: force display aspect ratio to always be 16:9 no black bars

Post by andrewk89 »

KmCrct wrote:Is there a way to go into an MP4 and change its DAR without re-encoding ?
Try My MP4Box GUI http://www.videohelp.com/software/My-MP4Box-GUI. Supports a couple of different formats and fast to use once you figure out the work flow. I end up having to do math to figure out the scaling factor to get it to play back "correctly". Use MediaInfo to get the source resolution. Took a couple of tries the first time to figure out how to calculate the scaling factor from the source resolution and target display aspect ratio, but it's not horrible.

If it's a codec that My MP4Box GUI doesn't support (e.g. H.265 HEVC, etc.), then the only way I've found so far is to copy it into a MKV container using Avidemux http://avidemux.sourceforge.net/. Edit the MKV properties to force a specific display width. Again, involves some math, but not as much as with My MP4Box GUI.
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