aspect ratio not maintained after ripping bluray

[nzk300]

I bought the box set of F&F bluray and all my conversions to mkv have black bars on the LEFT and RIGHT as well as top and bottom. Top and bottom I understand because its 2.35:1 but why the black bars on left and right? This happened with all 7 blurays and no matter what player I use to play the mkv file. All the mkv files are formatted this way. I tried using the different movie files in the bluray and still same problem. This didn't happen with the older version of makemkv when I did the Star Wars and Batman box sets. Don't know whats going on...



When I play the bluray directly this doesn't happen. Quite annoying. Any fix?

[Woodstock]

If you play the file back with VLC, what does the file information (Ctrl-I in the Windows version) show as the characteristics of the video?

Your example looks kind of like what I get when I play a BD file at 1:1 on a larger-than-1080 screen, if VLC is running full screen (or in a larger-than-1920x1080 window).

MakeMKV copies the video dimensions and aspect ratio from the disk to the file, so this is likely to come down to how your player software is responding. I know that two I have will zoom differently when playing a DVD vs. an MKV made from that DVD, but report the dimensions are the same. Haven't tried it with a BD-aware player.

[nzk300]

This is what I have:

Type: Video
Codec: Windows Media Video VC1 (WVC1)
Language: English
Resolution: 1920x1080
Frame Rate: 23.976215
Decoded format: Planar 4:2:0 YUV

Is this what you meant? I am playing on a 1080 screen, I tried changing aspect ratio under the Video tab but that didn't work either. I figure if the bluray is playing correctly why is the mkv file not? Its gotta be the conversion?

[Woodstock]

If you're playing on a 1080p screen, see if your player has a "full screen" mode. In VLC, this is invoked by going to "Full screen interface", then "Minimal interface (Alt+h)". Even on a 2160p screen, a 1080p video goes to "full screen" in this mode, with no letterbox, at least if the aspect ratio is 1.78. This is not the normal mode for VLC when playing MKV or MP4 files; it usually does a "scale to fit window".

[Yugatha]

Alternatively, go Full-screen with VLC by pressing 'F' when playing the video - you should notice it covers the whole left - right panels.

The reason it is doing this is that the black bars are part of the 1080p vertical pixels. It'll be something like 140 pixels black bar at the top, 800 of the video in the middle, then 140 pixels black bar at the bottom. Because it is part of the video file, VLC is showing it.
Because you aren't in full-screen mode on the 1080p screen, it is restricted in the top and bottom in how much it can show (there is still plenty of space on the left and right it *could* display) (see below for an example)

Using a tool such as handbrake, you could remove the black bars that are built into the video at the top and bottom. This would result in a 1920x800p video, and would fit better in Window mode in VLC

[MrVideo]

You still have all of the M$ window dressing, so VLC cannot fill all of the display on the left/right because of the displaying of the 1080 vertical pixels.

When playing files with VLC, just double-click on the video image and VLC will get rid of all of the M$ window dressing and fill the screen. In this case you'll still have the letterbox bars, but the pillar bars will be gone.

[Krawk]

A 2.35:1 video would have black bars on the top and bottom. To get black bars on right and left it would have to be a video that is less than 1.78:1 (16:9).

When I use MPC-HC there are two display options under playback/right click. "Touch from the inside" and "Touch from the outside"
To truly see if your video file has black space on the left and right sides, a program like Handbrake would suggest cropping space on the right and left sides when it comes to encoding.
I have not visited F&F with the most current version of MakeMKV so cannot tell you if I see the same issue.