I know that this is not the most accurate way to do things, but it seems to work, for now. I do a lot of resizing of AVI's and to judge how I want the AVI to eventually look I play it back in Windows Media Player. But first I go into the files "Properties" and check to see what the current resolution is. From there, depending on how much black I am seeing on the top and the bottom in WMP, I will use AVIdemux to resize it the way I want. What I don't understand though is why one file with a resolution of say, 512 x 272 almost fills up the entire WMP screen with the exception of a little black on the bottom and top and another file with an even larger resolution does not fill the WMP screen as much as the other one. Is there some other determining factor here?
Don't know a lot about resolution but I would guess 4.3 versus 16.9. Your 512 x 272 come's out to 720 x 340 (NTSC) at 4.3 (huge letterboxing but only 720 x 443 as 16.9 (very small letterboxing). Conversely, a 672 x 512 is close to 720 x 480 (4.3-no letterboxeng) and changing it to 16.9 would only strech everything up. Hope this make's sense.
It makes some sense! Actually I'm just glad someone answered my thread without laughing at me! I didn't make myself all the way clear before either. Basically I always like it when I play back a DVD on my home machine and there's only an inch or so of black on the bottom and the top, regardless of whether it's letterbox or not. Kind of like how Fox broadcasts their shows. Anyway that's my target that I want as many of my AVI's to look like eventually also, after I've burned them to disk, but many of them in their raw form aren't always like that so I've been doing a lot of resizing and usually guessing what is a good resolution to change to in AVIdemux. I think I have also learned that WMP is not always a good judge of what it will come out like once it's played back on my home machine and that's why I was originally inquiring why one particular AVI with a resolution of 512 x 272 looks the same, smaller or larger as an AVI that's 640 x 400 in WMP. Guess I'm trying to find a pattern to go by here. I say that also because I have learned that in other media players, those same AVI files that I mentioned sometimes fill up the screen totally different than WMP, further confusing my understanding of how this all works. Now I've probably got you confused!
Not at all familar with Avidemux and I don't find online player's that great at displaying Aspect Ratio but don"t use them much anyway. If you're able to change an AR, you need some kind of resolution calculator; I use this, work's fine here on Vista too, compatability mode not even needed; I'm currently on my fifth page of 8 1/2 x 11 conversion's: http://www.tomzavodny.cz/program/bitcalc/index_en.php (free and say's it's for VCD, ignore that) At #8, put in the resolution the avi show's, say the 512 x 272, change it to PAL or NTSC and select 720 x 576 or 480 in the drop down box. That will display your resolution as 4.3 below, to change that to 16.9, multiply that number by 1.33. I find 16.9 to show smaller black bar's here unless the resolution is over 720 x 400 or there about (changing to 16.9 would take it too far past the 480 I want) and also find fudging the resolution 15 or 20 point's make's little difference; 720 x 360 may not be acceptable but 375 - 380 is, personal preference.
Wow, that's a nice little program. I think It'll be just what I've been needing! Thanks for all of your help, and your patience when I tend to write overly-technical questions!
mistycat...real quick, I just wanted to ask you...I noticed that the VidCalc does not allow you to input DVD sizes, just CD. Does that matter? Can I still come up with a reasonably close approximation of what resolution I need?
It will be for DVD, ignore any reference to VCD, CD. I've used the program for year's and hundred's of DVD's. Actually found it on a now defunct forum for DVD conversion for an encoder I was using and still do. Just enter whatever the original AR is for the avi and you'll get an accurate readout.
