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A week or so ago, I posted an erroneous message about what I thought was MakeMKV occasionally forcing 16:9 DVD's to 4:3. I deleted that post this morning as I have realized the issue is really MakeMKV forcing anamorphic (1.85:1) DVD's to a full-screen (4:3) aspect ratio. This causes the images to appear thin and squashed horizontally in the resulting MKV file. Now that I know the issue is related to anamorphic DVD's and not a random event, there must be a setting or selection rule to maintain the original DVD's aspect ratio. Can someone point me in the correct direction? Thanks in advance.
Cheers,
Jeff

While I was hoping to receive a response to point me in the right direction, I ultimately got there through a couple hours of searching, frustration, poking, trial and error. There may be a more elegant method of correcting aspect ratio issues, but with my fumbling and bumbling, this is where I ended. So to help others, here is a set of step-by-step instructions...

1. Open MKVMerge. (These instructions assume you are using MKVMerge GUI v7.9.0. To find a freeware copy of the program, simply perform an Internet search for 'MKVMerge'.)

2. Click the 'File' tab, then select 'Header editor'.

3. In the Header Editor, click the 'File' tab and 'Open' the file to be modified.

4. In the LH column, expand the video track to be modified.

5. The two fields of interest are 'Video display width' and 'Video display height'. Note the existing 'current value' for each.

6. Using a calculator, the current height and the desired width-to-height ratio, determine the new video width. For example... the existing width and height are 640 and 480, respectively. This is a typical 4:3, full-screen ratio. If the desired anamorphic ratio is to be 1.85:1, then calculation will be... 480x1.85=desired video width. (existing height x new ratio = new width)

7. Select the 'Video display width' in the LH column of the Header Editor.

8. In the 'Current value' field, input the new calculated video width. (In this example, the number will be 888)

9. Click the 'File' tab and 'Save' the video file. The Header Editor will automatically validate all changes made to the header and if no errors are detected, the file will save accordingly. Otherwise, the Header Editor will direct you to the erroneous data field.

10) End of sequence. The resulting saved video file should playback in the desired aspect ratio.

Cheers,
Jeff

I have this same issue. I copied season 2 of the inbetweeners. There are 6 episodes. Episode 4 is being forced to 4:3, the others are 16:9.

I used a different program to extract episode 4, and i played the VIDEO_TS.IFO, it plays as 16:9. Convert that to mkv with makemkv and it is forced to 4:3.


* Update: A few other programs have also converted this to 4:3,so ... confused.

That's what happens when the AR in the stream doesn't match the AR in the DVD IFO.

Correcting the AR in the Matroska headers is a partial fix for the problem, but it still doesn't change the AR in the stream headers, which can still cause problems.

To fix the problem "properly" you need to extract the video stream from the file, run it through a program called "restream" (or similar) then remux the fixed stream back into the MKV while making sure the Matroska headers state the correct AR too.

The movie Independence Day was one of the first movies listed as a 4:3 title but yet it should display as widescreen. There are a bunch more titles out there with the same issue since then.
Most fixes are as simple as editing the displaywidth in the header to 854. The IFO file on the original disc is telling the player to do this so embedding this in the MKV header is perfectly fine.

MakeMKV takes it's AR info from the stream, not the IFO. If not corrected properly, some programs will still obey the stream headers and play 16:9 as 4:3 regardless of what the Matroska Headers say, which is why it's best to use restream on the affected videos.

Windows Media Player is an example of a program that behaves oddly if the streams headers aren't corrected properly.

If you intend to play the file only on a player that you know overrides the stream header with the Matroska AR, then you can skip Restream and hope the problem never comes up...

I've just copied the dvd movie "The Inbetweeners Movie" -- and again, its 4:3.

This seems like a neat way to copy-protect DVDs... My playstation, my dvd player and my PC all play the disc perfectly, but when copied, it's 4:3

Why cant MakeMKV make an MKV of the correct ratio? As above, all players get this correct so it cant be that hard? This is confusing!!

The stupid answer would be that MakeMKV doesn't alter the streams, it just copies them as they are on the disc.

Really, we all know it probably should but someone would have to code it in...

(It's also been known to include a bunch of non-forced subtitles in a forced subtitle stream if there's no clear all between them rather than creating it's own clear all.)

Would anyone be kind enough to put a simple 1) 2) 3) guide that would allow me to remux this to the correct aspect ratio please?