Screen Formatting Problems!

[JimmySparks]

Hi All-

A noobie to MakeMKV - but this is one kick-ass product. But i seem to be having a problem when coverting "some" DVD's. When converting, on some DVD's i get a black boarder around the movie..

This link show the picture that i get...
http://s237.photobucket.com/albums/ff28 ... rent=3.jpg


But on some movies, i get the movie "full-screen", like in this picture....
http://s237.photobucket.com/albums/ff28 ... rent=2.jpg


The process that i use is exactly the same;
1/. Insert DVD into computer drive.
2/. Run MAKEMKV
3/. Select TITLE, remove subtitles and chapters not required.
4/. Convert.

I do this exactly the same each time, but on some movies i get it with the black board as in picture one, other times, i get it as expected - full screen.
For the movies that gives me a boarder, if i put the original dvd into the player (and play), it displays full screen as expected.

For the MKV movies that have the boarder, my projector menu will not allow me to "zoom" in on the picture to make it full screen.

I've check the settings, and cannot see why this happens on some movies..
(Original movies are all the same region), not specific to NTSC or PAL.....

Any ideas?
JimSparks-(!)

[mike admin]

The first one looks like an 16:9 movie that is encoded as 4:3. This is the way it is encoded on DVD. Look for "aspect ratio" information on a right pane when selecting title. Also, some discs are dual-sided with a widescreen version on one side and 4:3 on another. Make sure you insert the disc the right side

[JimmySparks]

Thanks Mike -

The dvd is a one-sided DVD (Star Trek-VThe Final Frontier - region4 PAL). I have included a screen shot of MakeMKV screen for you to check, nothing found in relation to aspect...

http://s237.photobucket.com/albums/ff28 ... rent=4.jpg


In this pic, i have selected only the movie, all the other sub-titles and languages not required. (ed: this screen shot shows all audio and chapeters selected... my error)

Many thanks
JimmyS

[mark007]

Yes it took me a while to figure out this myself. The problem is that many DVD's seem to be badly encoded, ie each frame doesn't contain the correct aspect ratio information. DVD Players, hardware and software workaround this, but when converted to mkv this workaround will often fail to kick in. I had to manually edit many of my mkv movies, to display in the correct ratio. I usually had to change all of the mpeg2 frames to be the correct aspect ratio using some piece of software that I can't remember now.

I'll get back with the name of it. Anyways for me it boiled down to badly flagged dvd video frames which fail to get interpreted correctly when in any form other than the original.

[Taddeusz]

Of all the original Star Trek movies that is the only one I don't own because it's such a horrible movie. But I digress. Mike is correct. The cause of your problem is because the movie is letterboxed. Meaning the actual shape of the video is made to fit an old normal TV and NOT a newer widescreen TV. If you want proof go to Amazon's page on the DVD:

http://www.amazon.com/Star-Trek-V-Final ... 166&sr=8-2

In the product details you'll see the following: Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC

While it does say it is widescreen it also says it's letterboxed. Meaning the video is NOT 16:9.

If you want to reformat the video to fit to a wide screen you'll have to use a program like Handbrake to crop out the letterboxing. Otherwise you'll be forced to use the aspect ratio option on your TV to fix the picture just as you would had you been playing directly from the DVD.

[JimmySparks]

Many thanks Taddeusz -

Yes, i agree it's not best of the series, i only use that as the example of the problem . I also get it on ID4 as well... I'll checek tonight when i get home, but thanks in advance for your help..

I'll also check out Handbrake...

Again thanks..
JimmySparks.

[JimmySparks]

Hi Taddeusz

The DVD indicates widescreen 2.35:1 (Anamorphic) format, but no mention (specifically) of "Letterbox". Note that it appears that all the DVD movies i convertd to MKV, then have this issue are 2.35:1 format. IS this something that can may be get added to the next version on MakeMKV - if its even possible, i don't know enough about it..

Thanks to all
JS

[Taddeusz]

I've noticed on Paramount DVD's if it says "widescreen" it really means letterboxed. If it says specifically something like enhanced for 16:9 widescreen or anamorphic widescreen that means the video frame is 16:9.

Now, on a 16:9 frame video what that means is if the video is actually wider than that, 2.35:1 or 1.85:1, you will still get slight black bars on the top and bottom but they shouldn't be as large as a letterboxed movie.