Anamorphic setting not working with Apple TV

oegjr · Post by **oegjr** » Mon Oct 08, 2007 1:31 pm

When I use the Apple TV settings on HandBrake, the movie displays on my TV with bars on each side. I thought the purpose of using the anamorphic option was so that it would display on screen like it does with the DVD, i.e., filling the entire 16x9 screen without distortion.

Using:

Macbook
OS X 10.4.1
Apple TV 1.1

dynaflash · Post by **dynaflash** » Mon Oct 08, 2007 1:40 pm

Depends on your source. Is it anamorphic ? if its hard letterboxed, you will still get the bars.

oegjr · Post by **oegjr** » Mon Oct 08, 2007 2:03 pm

Source is anamorphic DVD.

dynaflash · Post by **dynaflash** » Mon Oct 08, 2007 2:05 pm

Hmmm. what does the Anamorphic output show in the picture preview window (assuming your using the macgui) ?

oegjr · Post by **oegjr** » Mon Oct 08, 2007 2:10 pm

the picture window shows:

Source: 720x480, Output: 720x480, Anamorphic: 640x480

dynaflash · Post by **dynaflash** » Mon Oct 08, 2007 2:13 pm

what dvd is this ?? doesnt *appear* to be an anamorphic dvd.

oegjr · Post by **oegjr** » Mon Oct 08, 2007 2:25 pm

Looked at it, and I guess it isn't, I assumed it was, since it was a newer one. Since this is happening mainly with movies for children, I gather the others I have problems with are also fullscreen and not anamorphic...

The image does not appear stretched on the DVD player, yet fills the screen, I assume this is something the player is doing on its own...

rhester · Post by **rhester** » Mon Oct 08, 2007 2:29 pm

Almost certainly correct on all counts.

Rodney

PuzZLeR · Post by **PuzZLeR** » Mon Oct 08, 2007 4:22 pm

I'm on Windows so it may be a bit different, but same idea.

If the source says Aspect: 1.33, then it's not an anamorphic DvD source. HandBrake will encode it to the 4:3 aspect ratio and black bars will show.

If it says Aspect 1.77, then for sure it's an anamorphic DvD source.

dynaflash · Post by **dynaflash** » Mon Oct 08, 2007 4:24 pm

This link has some info on how to tell from the dvd box:

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/ ... html#demos

under "How Do I Know A DVD Is Anamorphic?".

lavoied · Post by **lavoied** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 11:47 am

If the source is 1.33, can we encode the movie to it will fit the entire screen of the TV (4:3).

example, I have a movie for my childrens who plays well with the DVD player. The screen is entirely filled. If I rip it using handbrake 9.1, selecting "anamorphinc" I have black bar appearing each side of the screen.

I reading documentation since 3 days and I don't understand yet.

Thanks
Dany

nightstrm · Post by **nightstrm** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 3:46 pm

Anything with a source of 1.33:1 should not be encoded with anamorphic checked, AFAIK.

sdm · Post by **sdm** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 2:57 am

DVDs are all anamorphic. For NTSC dvds, the frame is stored with dimentions 720x480. The frame is meant to be displayed squished or stretched horizontally. On a display with square pixels, this translates to 640x480 for 4:3 content or 853x480 for widescreen content. Extra widescreen films are still encoded with a framesize of 720x480 and displayed at 853x480 but they have hard letterbox or actual black bars on the top and bottom of the content.

If your source is 4:3 and you encoded with anamorphic checked, your file will be 720x480 and displayed as 640x480 (this is changed in svn to 720x540).

If your source is 4:3 and you encode without anamorphic checked, you file will be 640x480 and displayed as 640x480.

If you are watching this on a 4:3 TV, there won't be any black bars on the screen if your equipment is setup correctly.

If you are watching this on a 16:9 TV, there will be black bars on the left and right sides, because ... there is no content to fill the sides.

@nightsrm, I encode my 4:3 content with anamorphic checked ... more pixel info, and no scaling is better IMO.

Lavoied, hope this helps.

--sdm.

rhester · Post by **rhester** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 11:53 am

sdm wrote:@nightsrm, I encode my 4:3 content with anamorphic checked ... more pixel info, and no scaling is better IMO.

What do you mean? You either scale it at the time of the rip or you let the device do it - but one way or another, it's going to be scaled (horizontally, because it's 480p after the rip). So there are two huge disadvantages to this - first, you're allowing the device scaler to do the work (and it's unlikely a realtime scanner is going to approach Lanczos in quality), and second, you're wasting bits on pixels that you are going to throw away in the end anyway. This approach seems to be the worst of all possible worlds.

Rodney

lavoied · Post by **lavoied** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 4:20 pm

Thanks for the replies

rhester : sorry for the duplicate post.

The test I did yesterday evening was :

source : DVD previously encoded from a DIVX many month ago.
Here is what mplayer report : MPEG2 Video 720x480 (4:3) 29.97fps 7460Kbps [Video]. In VLC, there is no black bar around. It is displayed correctly on my television. My television have an option to optimize for 16:9 but when it is set I just get black bar all around image.

When I encode it with anamorphic option, apple tv preset, no crop I get a mp4 file resolution of 720x480 and display resolution of 720x480

When I encode it without anamorphic option, apple tv preset. no crop I get the same thing. Both display the same size on TV. Apple TV is configured for 480i.

But for now I will continue to read and try to understand fully. I will report back tomorrow morning after doing more tests.

Thanks
Dany

jbrjake · Post by **jbrjake** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 4:30 pm

rhester wrote:you're wasting bits on pixels that you are going to throw away in the end anyway

I would assume sdm is using svn code, where the bits aren't thrown away.

sdm · Post by **sdm** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 5:04 pm

rhester - your points make sense, but what I was thinking was: I watch all my content using my mac mini displaying at 1280x720 on a 55" hdtv.
4:3 content is scaled up by the display to 960 wide x 720 high.
My idea was it would be preferable to have the display scale 720 wide up to 960 wide,
rather than have HandBrake first scale 720 wide down to 640 wide (using the Lanczos algorithm) and then the display scaling 640 wide up to 960 wide.

If my logic is flawed, I'd be happy to listen.

--sdm.

rhester · Post by **rhester** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 5:30 pm

In practice, I would be absolutely shocked if you saw a difference, and can guarantee that the bitrate savings in the "strip" of 80px you don't normally keep would improve the quality a lot more than 80px of horizontal resolution...but feel free to experiment and see.

Rodney

sdm · Post by **sdm** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 5:46 pm

I have been experimenting, and your probably right, in practice I may not be able to see the difference - I'd have to see them playing at the same time side by side on my TV. Since I can't do that, I chose to go with what is theoretically better - my (flawed?) logic stated above.
Since I encode with CRF, I am not going to gain extra quality in a 640w encode over 720w encode, just a smaller file size. right?

Does anyone agree with my logic?

Thanks,
--sdm.

rhester · Post by **rhester** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 7:52 pm

sdm wrote:Since I encode with CRF, I am not going to gain extra quality in a 640w encode over 720w encode, just a smaller file size. right?

Right.

Rodney

lavoied · Post by **lavoied** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 6:39 pm

I'm starting to get crazy about mp4 encoding !!!

Now I try a TV show encoded 720x480 on the DVD. It is not specified on the case if it is anamorphic.

When I convert a title with handbrake WIN 0.9.1, preset "apple TV", anamorphic, no crop, I have the full horizontal image on TV (a 4:3 sony wega TV) but vertically the image is stretched. Is the apple TV not intelligent enough? Is my TV getting crazy? When I play the show with my DVD player, image have black bar on top and bottom, and aspect ratio is ok.

If I encode the same movie without "anamorphic" checked, I get the same result.

Am I correct to say that if the resolution on DVD is 720 x 480, then I just have is use anamorphic encoding?

Is it a way to add black bar on top and bottom, I try manual crop with negative value and it don't work.

Thanks for your patience

mscolej · Post by **mscolej** » Wed Jan 02, 2008 9:16 pm

This is the closest post I could find to my question so here goes, if I need to set up my own post let me know.

Using a Mac Quad G5 Power PC Leopard.

I can't seem to get dual-layer DVD disc's (SNATCH and Lock Stock specifically) to rip in widescreen, they default to fullscreen.

Anamorphic setting not working with Apple TV

Anamorphic setting not working with Apple TV

Dual Layer Widescreen/Fullscreen only rip in Fullscreen.