anamophic for 4:3 material?

General questions or discussion about HandBrake, Video and/or audio transcoding, trends etc.
dorito
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anamophic for 4:3 material?

Post by dorito »

is it recomended for sd 4:3 material?

i know to use loose anamophic for sd widescreen vids...is that correct?

im a little confused about the whole issue of anamophic and if it is really needed...

i am encoding for the new apple tv and iphone 4.

thanks
jamiemlaw
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Re: anamophic for 4:3 material?

Post by jamiemlaw »

So you're saying, why encode at 720x480 and squash it down to 640x480, when you could just encode at 640x480 in the first place and be done with it?

The answer is that if you happen to watch the picture on a display larger than 640x480, so it has to be scaled up, the 720x480 version will be of slightly higher quality than the 640x480 version. Because it has more pixels in it.

I'd say stick with loose anamorphic.
mduell
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Re: anamophic for 4:3 material?

Post by mduell »

Yes, it's a good idea to stay anamorphic strict for DVDs.

4:3 content on an iPhone 4 is 853x640, so the extra information from encoding at 720x480 instead of 640x480 is used. Same for the tv where you have a 960x720 output.
jamiemlaw
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Re: anamophic for 4:3 material?

Post by jamiemlaw »

Or strict anamorphic.
dorito
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Re: anamophic for 4:3 material?

Post by dorito »

so strick or loose? which is recommend for dvd sources?

Also when i encode a 1080p source to 720p i have noticed you don't get 720 height you get 528 (when you set length to 1280) so i have started to use the custom anamorphic tool to manually adjust the height from 528 to 720 (obviously with the 'keep aspect ratio' ticked)...is this a good idea? i am getting more pixels so higher quality right?

thanks
TedJ
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Re: anamophic for 4:3 material?

Post by TedJ »

Strict or loose anamorphic is a matter of personal taste, but strict won't allow you to resize your encode at all by definition.

Anamorphic is not relevant to (most) HD sources as they use square pixels. The reason you're getting a framesize of 1280x528 is because handbrake is cropping the matting (black bars) used to pad a 2.40:1 widescreen feature into the standard 16x9 1080p/720p frame. For HD sources, anamorphic none along with "keep aspect ratio" then rescaling to the appropriate width will give you the desired result.
dorito
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Re: anamophic for 4:3 material?

Post by dorito »

So which is recommend by the cummumity strike, loose or none for as sources?

So in the case of hi def encodes am I getting a higher quality file by using custom anamorphic to change the 1280 by 528 into 1280 by 720? Does anyone else here do this?

Thanks
nightstrm
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Re: anamophic for 4:3 material?

Post by nightstrm »

dorito wrote:So which is recommend by the cummumity strike, loose or none for as sources?

So in the case of hi def encodes am I getting a higher quality file by using custom anamorphic to change the 1280 by 528 into 1280 by 720? Does anyone else here do this?

Thanks
Yes, there are a few of us that do that. I've had no problems since switching to custom anamorphic for my HD sources. I've also changed from loose to strict for DVD sources.
Deleted User 11865

Re: anamophic for 4:3 material?

Post by Deleted User 11865 »

dorito wrote:So in the case of hi def encodes am I getting a higher quality file by using custom anamorphic to change the 1280 by 528 into 1280 by 720? Does anyone else here do this?

Thanks
Note that (IIRC) it's been determined that the AppleTV will never send a signal higher than 720p regardless of whether it's connected to a 1080p TV. Also, the iPhone 4 can only output 1024x768 max.

So it you have, say, a 2.40:1 source (storage resolution 1280x720, anamorphic custom 1728x720), the ATV 2 will send a 1280x720 signal with letterboxing (black bars) - the actual resolution sent to the TV will be 1280x533 (1280/2.4) plus 187 pixels of letterboxing.

That being said, it might be useful for future devices or for watching on your computer. You just won't be able to notice the difference now.
dorito
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Re: anamophic for 4:3 material?

Post by dorito »

nightstrm wrote:
dorito wrote:So which is recommend by the cummumity strike, loose or none for as sources?

So in the case of hi def encodes am I getting a higher quality file by using custom anamorphic to change the 1280 by 528 into 1280 by 720? Does anyone else here do this?

Thanks
Yes, there are a few of us that do that. I've had no problems since switching to custom anamorphic for my HD sources. I've also changed from loose to strict for DVD sources.
Why did you change from loose to strict may I ask?

Thanks
mduell
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Re: anamophic for 4:3 material?

Post by mduell »

Modern devices are capable enough that resizing isn't necessary.
nightstrm
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Re: anamophic for 4:3 material?

Post by nightstrm »

mduell wrote:Modern devices are capable enough that resizing isn't necessary.
This.
dorito
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Re: anamophic for 4:3 material?

Post by dorito »

nightstrm wrote:
mduell wrote:Modern devices are capable enough that resizing isn't necessary.
This.
So why use anamorphic (strict) at all?

Thanks
Deleted User 11865

Re: anamophic for 4:3 material?

Post by Deleted User 11865 »

dorito wrote:So why use anamorphic (strict) at all?

Thanks
Because it's the one mode which doesn't scale the source at all?
dorito
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Re: anamophic for 4:3 material?

Post by dorito »

why use anamorphic at all if modern devices dont need it?
Deleted User 11865

Re: anamophic for 4:3 material?

Post by Deleted User 11865 »

dorito wrote:why use anamorphic at all if modern devices dont need it?
If the source is anamorphic, you have to either (1) preserve it, or (2) upscale it. 2 isn't lossless and wastes bits.
creamyhorror
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Re: anamophic for 4:3 material?

Post by creamyhorror »

DVDs are anamorphic sources, so to best preserve their quality while not wasting extra bits by upscaling, you use anamorphic encoding.
dorito wrote:Why did you change from loose to strict may I ask?
Strict theoretically produces slightly better image quality, because it avoids resizing the image prior to encoding. Loose resizes the image to round mod16 dimensions, which certain older players/playback devices may need. If your players play odd resolutions (i.e. mod2), you should use Strict.
dorito
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Re: anamophic for 4:3 material?

Post by dorito »

so in short i should use strict on every dvd encode i do?

thanks
nightstrm
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Re: anamophic for 4:3 material?

Post by nightstrm »

dorito wrote:so in short i should use strict on every dvd encode i do?

thanks
Sure, if your playback device supports it.
mimosa
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Re: anamophic for 4:3 material?

Post by mimosa »

Question: why does the Normal preset use Strict, while High Profile uses "loose"?

Wouldn't it makes sense for High Profile to also use Strict, if the default Normal profile does as well?
thompson
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Re: anamophic for 4:3 material?

Post by thompson »

I believe, and someone can correct me if I'm wrong, that loose used to be the preferred option because x264 was more efficient encoding mod16. After the 0.9.4 release, there have been improvements to x264 and the x264 developers now recommend strict. So this is an example of old presets/x264 in the stable release. If you're using the nightly, definitely bump to strict if your device supports it.
match
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Re: anamophic for 4:3 material?

Post by match »

Could there be any case where strict and loose would give you the same display size. The reason I ask, is because I have a 720 x 480 source. When I choose strict anamorphic I get 631 x 480. Also...when I choose loose anamorphic, I get the same (631 x 480). Just curious as to what's going on there?
Deleted User 11865

Re: anamophic for 4:3 material?

Post by Deleted User 11865 »

Loose adjusts the storage dimensions. The display aspect ratio is the same as with strict (there may be a slight variation because the adjusted display dims have to be multiple of 1 pixel). It's also quite possible for the display dimensions to match exactly.
dorito
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Re: anamophic for 4:3 material?

Post by dorito »

sorry to bring this thread back but...

is it ok to use strict with the apple tv 1st gen?

thanks
Deleted User 11865

Re: anamophic for 4:3 material?

Post by Deleted User 11865 »

For DVD and other SD sources, yes.
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