Problems with video conversion of "Fantastic Four" DVD

[PatCarol]

Hi all.

I am a noobie and having done a search through the forum (search function and reading through forums) I have resorted to a direct question to the forum as I have encountered a problem that I have not seen raised previously.

I am backing up my near 300 DVD collection as 'movie only' direct from the DVD in as lossless a form I can using MKV. Manually selecting the appropriate title has generally been successful in choosing the main title. I have now saved over 100 of the DVDs successfully but experienced an odd issue with one movie "Fantastic Four - wide screen collection (Australian Release).

For some strange reason the video on play back is constrained to a wide format but occupying only 2/3 of the scree. It does not seem to be 16:9 and there is a wide black border all around the video box (sorry about the description but I am not familiar with much of the appropriate techno-terms). The sound is fine. I have retried the copy process three times with the same result and only for this movie.

When I play the DVD direct - I get a full wide-screen (16:9) play. However, playing the copied file via my HTC or on the PC results in the above described format.

The MKV Chapter structure shows only one possible main title with the other (very few) Chapters/options being very small files. I have triple checked preferences etc and as I said earlier; this is the only movie I have experienced this issue with.

Any suggestions / solutions most greatly appreciated even if it shows me to be a cluttz in not having done/set something basic
cheers

Pat

[Woodstock]

DVD video is stored as 720x480, and the actual aspect ratio mapped into that. If you have a "wide screen" version, the width will stay at 720, but the height will be less... and the black "letter box" bars will be added to make it 480 pixels high. In reality, a wide-screen DVD has less detail than a the standard definition version, just less horizontal range.

There are a couple of places on the disk that the "true" aspect ratio can be found, and sometimes they can conflict with each other. I can't remember which one MakeMKV puts into the file.

Different programs do different things when they have a display with a different aspect ratio. It sounds like your HTC is displaying the 720x480 box on a 1920x1080 display with no zoom, so you get the original top/bottom letter box and added side bars. Other programs will see the black bars, and remove them from the picture before scaling what's left to fit the display.

I would suggest going to handbrake.fr and downloading handbrake. You can process the file through it, and it will (normally) strip the original letter box off to save space, AND make sure that the aspect ratio agrees in all places (file header and the video stream itself).

[PatCarol]

Many thanks for the explanation Woodstock that helps demystify the issue quite a bit. I also take it that I cannot override the MKV aspect ratio setting so will investigate handbrake. Hopefully it allows/supports lossless conversion also.

Strange thing is that this is the only movie that the MKVMaker is not converting properly or the HTC is not zooming.

cheers

Pat

[Woodstock]

There are tools to directly manipulate the MKV file out there. If it is just the aspect ratio MakeMKV puts into the HEADER of the MKV file, that can be changed. I can't explain how, because I've never bothered.... Everything goes through Handbrake before going on my server.

If the problem is in the actual video track (the header is right, but the video says something else), that takes different tools. That can even screw up Handbrake, but HB will try to fix things up.

[PatCarol]

Thanks again, I will investigate further. I have found a second movie it has done this with "Black Rain" but in this instance it plays back the same way on PC as well as TV (via WDTV or direct from DVD). The other 10030+ I have converted to MKV seem to play nicely in the sandpit

Appreciate the feedback.

cheers

Pat

[PatCarol]

Fantastic 4 problem resolved using Handbrake - many thanks