convert a widescreen DVD movie to 640x480 for playing on a Hx4700

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John - 28 Oct 2004 01:02 GMT

Need a PC program that would convert a widescreen DVD movie to 640x480 for
playing on a Hx4700. I want to utilize the entire screen and do not mind
cropping.

I have tried several programs and although the properties of the final AVI
is showing 640x480, the movie plays back as widescreen and does not cover
the entire screen (black areas above and below the screen).

Thanks for any help,

PS. I am looking for a final movie size less than 900MEG.

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Tony A. - 28 Oct 2004 13:49 GMT

> Need a PC program that would convert a widescreen DVD movie to
> 640x480 for playing on a Hx4700. I want to utilize the entire screen
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
> does not cover the entire screen (black areas above and below the
> screen).

You don't say what software you've tried, but if you were to use DVDx, in
"Output Settings" set the resolution to 640 x 480, and the zoom mode to "Pan
Scan 16:9 -> 4:3".

I would suggest though, that at the low bitrate you will have to use to get
you're desired file size, you would be better off encoding to 320x240
instead of 640x480, and letting your player strech that to full screen.

Tony

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John - 29 Oct 2004 02:51 GMT

Thanks Tony, but DVDx did not work. DVDx is one of the programs I have
tried. The properties of the generated movie show 640x480 and the
Betaplayer on my PocketPC also shows 640x480 for the size. However, it
plays it back as widescreen on PocketPC (black areas above and below the
screen).

Which player are you using and are you generating AVI type movies?

Thanks,

>> Need a PC program that would convert a widescreen DVD movie to
>> 640x480 for playing on a Hx4700. I want to utilize the entire screen
[quoted text clipped - 16 lines]
>
> Tony

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Tony A. - 29 Oct 2004 11:43 GMT

> Thanks Tony, but DVDx did not work. DVDx is one of the programs I
> have tried. The properties of the generated movie show 640x480 and
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
>
> Which player are you using and are you generating AVI type movies?

I use betaplayer also, and divx-encoded AVI movies. What I think is throwing
you is this - if you have a 16:9 movie (fills entire screen on a widescreen
tv), then the DVDx pan scan zoom setting will do what you want, cropping the
sides down to give a 4:3 aspect ratio. However if you have say a 2.4:1
aspect ratio movie, that is actually stored on the DVD as a 16:9 movie, with
black bands to pad it out to 16:9. DVDx doesn't know about that, so it crops
the padded 16:9 image down to a 4:3, and you still have the black bands that
were part of the padded image.

If that's the case, I don't know how to deal with that in a single pass,
there are probably programs that can do it. What I would do is first convert
the widescreen movie to a high quality AVI file with DVDx, then use
VirtualDub to crop that to 640x480, and compress to your final bitrate. That
will definitely get you what you want, but will obviously take twice as
long.

Tony

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John - 31 Oct 2004 16:35 GMT

Thanks again. VirtualDub does the job but I need to figure out why it plays
back okay on my PC and not the PocketPC.

>> Thanks Tony, but DVDx did not work. DVDx is one of the programs I
>> have tried. The properties of the generated movie show 640x480 and
[quoted text clipped - 29 lines]
>
> Tony

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Tony A. - 31 Oct 2004 18:08 GMT

> Thanks again. VirtualDub does the job but I need to figure out why
> it plays back okay on my PC and not the PocketPC.

Excuse me for asking the obvious, but have you tried changing the Pixel
Aspect Ratio setting in BetaPlayer? You didn't initially say that the movie
played back ok on the PC, so I assumed you were inadvertently converting it
as letterboxed widescreen, but it sounds like you just have the wrong pixel
aspect ratio setting in your player.

Tony

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