ATV2 720p Aspect Ratio

[kav]

On the ATV2, dropping down a 16:9 movie seems simple enough-- 1920x1080 down to 1280x720.
But what about more extreme aspect ratios like 2.39:1?

I'm curious because HD iTunes movies with higher aspect ratios don't come at 720p. (Star Trek (2009), for example, is 1280x530.)
If the original image is, say, a Harry Potter at 1920x796, the resulting 720p image is a rather large 1744x720.
Is the ATV2 playing these much larger files at that resolution or does it scale them down to 1280, in this example 1280x528?

I ask because I've read in the forum that the ATV2 can accept 1080p, but scales it down (making big fat 1080 files a waste of size and processing). Is a 1744x720 a similar waste?

[TedJ]

Remember, the frame nomenclature (480p, 576p, 720p, 1080p) is for the full 16x9 frame including any matting (black bars). Since we usually remove the matting prior to encoding the height decreases but the width remains the same.

The frame height is determined by 1280 / aspect ratio, so a 2.40:1 feature will have a resolution of 1280 * 532 pixels. In any case don't need to worry about it, as long as "keep aspect ratio" is checked setting the width to 1280 will give you the desired result.

[Deleted User 11865]

I ask because I've read in the forum that the ATV2 can accept 1080p, but scales it down (making big fat 1080 files a waste of size and processing). Is a 1744x720 a similar waste?

Considering that the ATV 2 only seems to output 720p, it is. Also, you're making your files incompatible with your iPhone 4, iPad or 4th gen. iPod touch if you have any. iTunes will only sync video up to 1280x720 to these devices.

[kav]

Ah. So the term "720p" is strictly referencing 16:9. When encoding for ATV2 (or any A4 device), always stop at a 1280 width.

Thanks.