Is anamorphic TV footage really 16:9 widescreen?

slackergirl · Post by **slackergirl** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 12:27 am

So I have some nice anamorphic footage of Earth Girl Arjuna. Ripped it in 4:3, edited in 4:3 (with all skinny people) and then in avisynth put in:
LanczosResize(640,352)
AddBorders(0,64,0,64)

But that's not right. That gives me "movie" black bars and everyone is too squishy. What is the resize and boarders for "widescreen TV" blackbars?

Sorry if this is already posted somewhere, but I've scanned the forums and guides and can't find it anywhere...

RosenRed · Post by **RosenRed** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 1:35 am

You wouldn't want to use AddBorders(). Too much wasted bitrate. instead use crop()

Take a look at this (Anamorphic Widescreen Video) to figure out some things about anamorphic footage.

To resize for online distribution (or personal use

) read this Frame Sizes

When you've worked it out, why don't you read the rest of the guide? I think it will be very useful.

Good Luck!

slackergirl · Post by **slackergirl** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 1:43 am

ok, so now I feel a little stupid, because the preview while it was converting looked all squishy, but once I played it back in media player, it looked fine. Though in general my question still stands. The boarders in a 16:9 widescreen movie are definitely greater than in a "widescreen" TV production, so why did my vid look normal when adding the "movie" boarders? I'm so confused....

RosenRed · Post by **RosenRed** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 1:52 am

This is why I told you to take a look at the guide

When previewing, your video might look different than what it will be in the end...
Anamorphic footage means it will play on both 4:3 and 16:9 screens. Because of the differnce in resolution a 4:3 TV adds borders automaticaly (just like you did) to bring it to the right aspect ratio. And I insist on not using the AddBorders() command. You add to your video lot's of garbage information that take up space. If you crop instead your vid will look fine and it will be smaller.

I am not sure I can explain it any better, please read the guide for more information. I know it might be a bit confusing at first but it will be all clear later on.

Qyot27 · Post by **Qyot27** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 1:53 am

slackergirl wrote:ok, so now I feel a little stupid, because the preview while it was converting looked all squishy, but once I played it back in media player, it looked fine. Though in general my question still stands. The boarders in a 16:9 widescreen movie are definitely greater than in a "widescreen" TV production, so why did my vid look normal when adding the "movie" boarders? I'm so confused....

One of two reasons, probably:
A) The '16:9' movies being watched weren't actually 16:9, but something like 2.35:1 (which tends to be a rare ratio for anime)
B) Television overscan hides some of it, but watching it on a PC monitor exposes it all
C) Both

While I don't think it would be that detectable to human eyes, if you want to get technical resizing something to 640x360 is actually closest to 16:9. Using 352 as the height is to help with doing hard letterboxing, as both the image itself and the letterboxing should be multiples of 16 to reduce problems at the edge of the real image/maximize efficiency (in cases where the letterboxing is required, anyway; not having the bars at all is far more efficient). Some decoders still also have problems handling things that aren't multiples of 16.

slackergirl · Post by **slackergirl** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 1:55 am

RosenRed wrote:You wouldn't want to use AddBorders(). Too much wasted bitrate. instead use crop()

This particular encode is for submission to a con that requires 640x480 (my first con submission!), so I have to do it that way for it. For online, I will crop it. But the guides (which I have read multiple times) don't answer my specific question. On my widescreen TV, anamorphic movies still have some black bars on the top and bottom, but TV shows filmed for widescreen (such as Heroes, Arjuna or Last Exile) do not. (I've been wondering about that phenomena even before this.) So why did the standard 16:9 ratio boarders work? Is it an optical illusion? Is my TV just messed up? Has anyone else noticed this?

slackergirl · Post by **slackergirl** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 1:56 am

Thanks Qyot27. That answers my question. We must have been posting at the same time!

Qyot27 · Post by **Qyot27** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 5:08 am

slackergirl wrote:On my widescreen TV, anamorphic movies still have some black bars on the top and bottom, but TV shows filmed for widescreen (such as Heroes, Arjuna or Last Exile) do not.

Alright, then yes, the ratio of those particular movies is greater than 16:9, which is what widescreen TVs are designed to show much like a traditional TV is designed to show a 4:3 image. Where 16:9 would equal 848x480 (or in this case, 640x352), a 2.35:1 image would equal 1136x480 (or in this case, 640x256). The way such ratios are usually done is by letterboxing the image to make it 16:9 and then using the standard anamorphic flag. On a 4:3 TV, those movies would be the ones that have more drastic letterboxing, since the DVD player adds in the typical letterbox that 16:9 anamorphic movies are displayed with on playback on said TVs, plus the letterboxing that's part of the video stream in order to make it 16:9 in the first place - on a widescreen television, the DVD player doesn't have to letterbox on the fly, so what is seen on those is simply the letterboxing used to make a 2.35:1 image fit in a 16:9 frame.

I actually have to do this quite often when authoring DVDs with many of the HD trailers from the Quicktime site since they often use 2.35:1 instead of 16:9. Basically, you resize a trailer that's 1920x816 down to 720x352 (it would really be 848x352 to look right, but this is anamorphic we're talking about), do AddBorders(0,64,0,64), encode as a regular 4:3 image, and then manually reset the ratio flag to 16:9 instead of 4:3 - true, most encoding programs will let you select the flag prior to encoding, but I don't put much trust in them.

slackergirl · Post by **slackergirl** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 8:06 am

Thanks again, Qyot27! That answered my question even more!

Keeper of Hellfire · Post by **Keeper of Hellfire** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 11:56 am

Actually, cinema widerscreen is 1,85:1 (what the anime movies usually are in), what still is a bit wider than 16:9 (1,78:1). The 2,35:1 format is Cinemascope. Are there really anime in this format?

So cinema widescreen would be 880x480 (or 896x480), if properly resized. But if resized to a width 640, the next height that is a multiple of 16 would be 352 too.