A DVD with 2.35:1 Aspect Ratio is ripping to 1:33

[CJAG95]

OK. this seems really weird. I'm using MakeMKV to rip mostly Blu-Rays and a few old DVDs too. Just tried ripping "The Abyss: Special Edition" which is only available on DVD. The rip seems just fine until I use Plex Media Server to check the Metadata and it's displaying 1:33 when it clearly shows on the DVD case too that both the Theatrical Cut & Special Edition are in Widescreen / 2.35:1 - The image seems to be in the right aspect ratio when I play it but with black bars on the Top/Bottom of the image.

What's the deal here? Am I missing something?
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Here's the XML data:

<Media videoResolution="480" id="587" duration="10261851" bitrate="4659" width="720" height="480" aspectRatio="1.33" audioChannels="6" audioCodec="ac3" videoCodec="mpeg2video" container="mkv" videoFrameRate="NTSC">

<Part accessible="1" exists="1" id="588" key="/library/parts/588/file.mkv" duration="10261851" file="/Users/chadjames/Movies/Movies/The Abyss Special Edition (1993) 480p DD-5.1/The Abyss (1993) Special Edition 480p DD5.1.mkv" size="5975966576" container="mkv">
<Stream id="1259" streamType="1" codec="mpeg2video" index="0" bitrate="4118" language="English" languageCode="eng" anamorphic="1" bitDepth="8" chromaSubsampling="4:2:0" codecID="V_MPEG2" colorSpace="yuv" frameRateMode="vfr" height="480" pixelAspectRatio="8:9" scanType="progressive" width="720"/>
<Stream id="1260" streamType="2" selected="1" codec="ac3" index="1" channels="6" bitrate="448" language="English" languageCode="eng" audioChannelLayout="5.1(side)" bitDepth="16" bitrateMode="cbr" codecID="A_AC3" dialogNorm="-27" duration="10261851" samplingRate="48000" title="Surround 5.1"/>
<Stream id="1261" streamType="3" default="1" codec="vobsub" index="2" language="English" languageCode="eng" codecID="S_VOBSUB" format="vobsub"/>

[Woodstock]

A DVD is, by definition, 4:3 or 1.33 aspect ratio. The video is stored as 720x480, with letterbox bars (the black at the top and bottom) filling in for the parts that aren't there when you are displaying "just" the "wide screen" presentation. Your player can strip the bars out when playing the feature.

That said, there are two places to store the non-standard aspect ratio. They both should be the same, but they sometimes aren't. I can never remember which one MakeMKV copies to the MKV file (others know off the top of their heads), but you've found a case where they aren't in agreement.

I don't keep track of which place is "wrong" or how to fix it with mkvtoolnix, because the tool I use after MakeMKV, handbrake, will strip the black bars off so that the video is the correct aspect ratio. Then the player doesn't have to deal with possibly incorrect headers.

[CJAG95]

Hey Woodstock - thanks for the quick response! So you're saying that if I use Handbrake to re-encode the file it should strip the bars and fix this issue?

[Woodstock]

Yes, handbrake will strip the bars and save just the active part of the picture. Stripping the black bars alone will make the file smaller, but also DVD encoding is not particularly efficient compared to h.264.

And the price is right - $0 invested to start playing. Start with the default settings on handbrake (their "normal" preset) and go from there.

[Krawk]

Most of the time you can load up MKVToolnix and choose the header editor, edit the displaywidth to 854 and then hit control-s to save the header change.
I had the exact same issue with Independence Day dvd.
If it still looks funny, you might have to look up the aspect ratio of the movie and do some math and also do an edit on the displayheight field as well but this is rare. 854 / aspect ratio = displayheight

Don't worry if you think this is a band-aid approach, actually somewhere in one of the IFO files there is a command telling the dvd player to play this file at 854 pixels wide so you are simply hard coding it to the mkv file.