www.makemkv.com

Hi - while this topic has been posted, I see no solutions. I'm ripping my own copy of Thunderball (Bond). I have changed no settings within MakeMKV. When I play it just the MKV it created in WMP, or VLC, or via Plex to my TV, the movie fills the screen in height but has black bars on either side. If I play the BD itself I have the "normal" 16:9 letter box. What is MakeMKV doing to change the aspect ratio? I really just thought it was a throughput program and didn't screw with wnything...

Any help would be much appreciated - I want an exact replica of what I would see if playing the BD itself.

There is a free utility called "mediainfo": http://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo

Could you run that against your mkv file and post the text output here?

luckywales wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 30, 2019 4:54 pm

Hi - while this topic has been posted, I see no solutions. I'm ripping my own copy of Thunderball (Bond). I have changed no settings within MakeMKV. When I play it just the MKV it created in WMP, or VLC, or via Plex to my TV, the movie fills the screen in height but has black bars on either side. If I play the BD itself I have the "normal" 16:9 letter box. What is MakeMKV doing to change the aspect ratio? I really just thought it was a throughput program and didn't screw with wnything...

Any help would be much appreciated - I want an exact replica of what I would see if playing the BD itself.

MakeMKV changes nothing other than repackaging A/V streams in an .mkv container. The difference is how a player interprets the video stream. A commercial disc player will make appropriate AR adjustments automatically. A software player playing an .mkv container may not. It MAY offer a manual ZOOM option, etc. to compensate? Disc authoring varies & what seems a problem for one video, may not be for another.

Post-processing with a tool like Handbrake offers the option of cropping out the 'black bar' padding, but it's not something MakeMKV does.

I'm sure that there are NO black bars inside the mkv file. To add this, MakeMKV have to re-encode the stream from the Blu-ray, but this does not happen. VLC has also some tricky options for zoom, Aspect etc.

Grauhaar wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 30, 2019 6:00 pm

I'm sure that there are NO black bars inside the mkv file. To add this, MakeMKV have to re-encode the stream from the Blu-ray, but this does not happen.

Well, no, that's not right. Native Blu-ray is always 1920x1080 with square pixel sampling. Any title that is not exactly 16:9 will have black bars and so will the ripped MKV.

I'm talking about black bars on the sides as the thread creator. MakeMKV does not change the content.

Just checked, only the first three Bonds have black side bares because they are in approx 1:1,66 aspect ratio, all others have no side bars because most of them are in 1:2,35 (black bars on top and below).

I would like to re-energize the question by restating it, as I am experiencing the same issue:

I have a Blu Ray (BD) disc, which plays correctly at 16:9 aspect ratio (1920x1080) when I play the disc on my Mac via a software video player such as Leawo Blu-Ray player.

After ripping via MakeMKV, the Mkv file plays as a horizontally squished file in a software player such as 5KPlayer or Plex. It is squished to less than 4:3 aspect ratio, so that playing the Mkv file even with “stretch” screen setting on Plex doesn’t fully restore the full width. The crazy thing is, the Mkv header info advertises its aspect ratio as 1920x1080.

Therefore the issue seems to be with MakeMKV’s repackaging. I confirmed it is Makemkv’s fault by converting 5 minutes of the same Blu Ray disc video using Tipard Blu-Ray Converter for Mac, and the resultant Mkv file plays in the original widescreen (16:9) format using the same video players. Now, Tipard’s software is probably actually converting the video rather than just repackaging it, but still... The Tipard settings are H.264, “keep original” resolution, “keep original” frame rate and video bitrate, so I am scratching my head...

Can someone please offer real help?

If I remember right, there was an similar posting during the last weeks.

The solution was to respecify the MKV header settings by using "MKVToolNIX GUI". Load the mkv file in MKVToolNIX and set the aspect ratio for the video stream (lower right corner "Video properties") to 16:9 and remuxx the mkv file. Maybe it helps ...

You can also open the mkv file with MKVToolNIX in the "Header Editor" to check some resolution values.
Expand the "Video projection information" section and take a look to the "Video pixel width, Video pixel height, Video display width, Video display height" values.

Grauhaar wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 16, 2019 9:10 am

The solution was to respecify the MKV header settings by using "MKVToolNIX GUI". Load the mkv file in MKVToolNIX and set the aspect ratio for the video stream (lower right corner "Video properties") to 16:9 and remuxx the mkv file. Maybe it helps ...

That worked. Thanks! Had to open the file in the "Multiplexer" module of MKVToolNix GUI, then select the MPEG-1/2 codec, before it allowed me to select the value "16/9" in the "Set Aspect Ratio" field.

Grauhaar wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 16, 2019 9:10 am

You can also open the mkv file with MKVToolNIX in the "Header Editor" to check some resolution values.
Expand the "Video projection information" section and take a look to the "Video pixel width, Video pixel height, Video display width, Video display height" values.

I had done this before, but all those values looked correct.

I had the same issue with a DVD for 'A Life Less Ordinary'. When playing it back through Plex I had black bars to the left and right and the image was squashed.

Many thanks for MKVToolNIX tips. It helped me fix the aspect ratio issue from the rip from my DVD. I had even bought a 2009 re-issue of the original 1997 DVD, but it's the same disc! With a 16:9 and 4:3 version.

Very frustrated over this issue, so please be patient with me. This happens from time-to-time and still, after several years, I can't seem to resolve it. The instructions here were different so I tried them. Downloaded and installed the latest MKVToolNIX. Verified pixels were 720x480. Set width to 16, height to 9, unit to 3 (aspect ratio), and remuxed. Plex still plays 4:3. I rechecked the new file to make certain the values were what I thought. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

CaribbeanBlues wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 07, 2020 6:34 am

Set width to 16, height to 9, unit to 3 (aspect ratio), and remuxed. Plex still plays 4:3.

No Idea what you did (changed this n the header edtor?) and then remux? The Header editor data can only be saved but not remuxed. But it should work if you load the file in the "MKVToolNIX GUI" muxxer window, select the video track amd set the aspect ratio to 16/9 and remux.

Thank you for taking the time Grauhaar, and yes, I did open the proper tool before remuxing. But here is the good part. Around midnight last night, after searching and reading and trying and searching, I found a spot where the video file properties were described and how to access them. When I did, I discovered the setting there was not correct. Changing that to "16:9" and remuxing fixed the problem for the first time in years. I am very grateful for your response, and everyone else who has taken the time to read these posts and try to help those of us who "just want to copy the DVD" (I do it to put them on my movie server for my wife, kids and grandkids) and don't feel the desire to understand all the intricacies of a DVD the way you do. Truly, thank you and everyone else who posted.

P.S. Looked for a way to thank you on your post or mine, and to say "Case Closed" but couldn't find it. Nonetheless, for the 3rd time, thanks!!!
P.S. P.S. The problem isn't that you have no idea what I did, the problem is I have no idea what I'm doing!

Grauhaar wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 07, 2020 9:57 am

CaribbeanBlues wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 07, 2020 6:34 am

Set width to 16, height to 9, unit to 3 (aspect ratio), and remuxed. Plex still plays 4:3.

No Idea what you did (changed this n the header edtor?) and then remux? The Header editor data can only be saved but not remuxed. But it should work if you load the file in the "MKVToolNIX GUI" muxxer window, select the video track amd set the aspect ratio to 16/9 and remux.

Thank you for taking the time Grauhaar, and yes, I did open the proper tool before remuxing. But here is the good part. Around midnight last night, after searching and reading and trying and searching, I found a spot where the video file properties were described and how to access them. When I did, I discovered the setting there was not correct. Changing that to "16:9" and remuxing fixed the problem for the first time in years. I am very grateful for your response, and everyone else who has taken the time to read these posts and try to help those of us who "just want to copy the DVD" (I do it to put them on my movie server for my wife, kids and grandkids) and don't feel the desire to understand all the intricacies of a DVD the way you do. Truly, thank you and everyone else who posted.

P.S. Looked for a way to thank you on your post or mine, and to say "Case Closed" but couldn't find it. Nonetheless, for the 3rd time, thanks!!!
P.S. P.S. The problem isn't that you have no idea what I did, the problem is I have no idea what I'm doing!