How do I make SD NTSC content resize automatically?

[John Rofrano]

However, what I can’t figure out is how to produce in a disk based MPEG-2 output file the ability of the material to be anamorphic, so that it will display in standard full screen when served to a 4:3 display, or to WS when served to my plasma display.

What do you mean by “Disc based”? Are you making DVD’s? Adding letterboxing to 16:9 in a 4:3 frame is the job of the device that is serving up the video. A 4:3 TV doesn’t have a clue what to do with a 16;9 video so it squeezes it into the full 4:3 display. DVD players have this capability built-in and do the letterboxing for you. Media players may not. If your media player is not smart enough to letter box your 16:9 video when serving it to a 4:3 device then you need to render everything in two formats (16:9 and 4:3 with letterbox) or else throw away the 4:3 TV’s and get 16:9’s. There is no other way that I know of to solve this and this is why cable companies serve 16:9 letterboxed video as 4:3 which then becomes a postage stamp on a real 16:9 display. It’s very frustrating.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Tony Pat]

What do you mean by “Disc based”? Are you making DVD’s? Adding letterboxing to 16:9 in a 4:3 frame is the job of the device that is serving up the video. A 4:3 TV doesn’t have a clue what to do with a 16;9 video so it squeezes it into the full 4:3 display. DVD players have this capability built-in and do the letterboxing for you. Media players may not. If your media player is not smart enough to letter box your 16:9 video when serving it to a 4:3 device then you need to render everything in two formats (16:9 and 4:3 with letterbox) or else throw away the 4:3 TV’s and get 16:9’s. There is no other way that I know of to solve this and this is why cable companies serve 16:9 letterboxed video as 4:3 which then becomes a postage stamp on a real 16:9 display. It’s very frustrating.

I meant hard disk based (should have been more clear). I guess I need to understand better how (in general) this works. My display has an Auto display size mode that will take an incoming signal and, if it is 4:3, automatically stretch it to fill the 16:9 space. This works for 4:3 content being sent by my cable provider and on plain-old 4:3 content from my DVD player (I do not have my player stretching this content before being sent to the display). But when I send the SD NTSC MPEG-2 content via WMP12 the set will not automatically stretch it; I have to force select one of the Wide modes.

[John Rofrano]

But when I send the SD NTSC MPEG-2 content via WMP12 the set will not automatically stretch it; I have to force select one of the Wide modes.

What is WMP12? Is this Windows Media Player? I’m confused at how this is set up. Are we talking about a 4:3 TV here or a PC? How is Windows Media Player playing video on your TV?

It sounds like your 4:3 MPEG2 file is playing correctly in 4:3 on your widescreen display but you don’t want that… you want it to be stretched and distorted to 16:9? As I said, the device that is playing the file has the responsibility to send it in the correct format and it sounds like it is correctly identifying it as 4:3 and your display is correctly playing as 4:3, so maybe the “auto” mode is incorrectly thinking the 4:3 from the cable box is really 16:9 which is why it stretches it?

Just so we are clear, if I had a TV and it had an “auto” mode and it stretched 4:3 to 16:9 I would bring it back. Auto means autodetect the aspect and play back at the “proper” aspect, not stretching everything to 16:9 whether it’s 16:9 or not. Maybe I’m misunderstand what you want to happen but it sounds like it’s working correctly to me if 4:3 is being displayed as 4:3 with pillarboxes on a 16:9 display.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com