[Sorry if it appears multiple times. I am posting it a third time now after
waiting a day after each post none of which seem to have made it to
the newsgroup for some reason]
720 x 540 is not an acceptable size for Video...Wide screen or
otherwise...
It is acceptable as input for Movie Maker! I thought we were talking about
the resizing photos for input into Movie Maker.... and not directly to DVD..
MM will rescale the input images into required size of output format as part
of encding. The idea of this discussion was to use an appropriate size for
input so that this internal resize operation preserves as much quality as
possible. This statement of your shows the confusion I am talking about.
So, you want Movie Maker users to believe that if they are creating a
DV-AVI output of lets say 720 x 576 and that if you play the output in
Media Player and check its properties you will be given a value other than
the one you required from movie maker??? Something is rotten in the state
of Denmark I think. Using the basic function in Windows Explorer you can
add the column DIMENSION. This is what I use...it shows the correct size
of
720 x 576. That's what I requested from Movie Maker. However using Media
Player it does show 768 x 576 and its WRONG.
I dont believe Windows Media Player is lying here. You can verify this by
capturing the screen by a software that would capture DirectX outputs and
analyzing the captured screen to see what size of screen you have captured.
Nothing is rotton in the state of Denmark, its really beautiful and
pleasant... I wish I could say the same about your attitude
I have even used my other
software and checked it out in media player. Media Player displays the
wrong info. Check out Windows Explorer and add the Dimensions Column.
You didnt get the point. The output from Movie Maker in the format of DV AVI
would export non-square screen pixels, which should be scaled by any media
player to 768x576 size for output on screen. This scaling is automatically
applied to movies by the DVD player.
Another example is SVCD which has to be size of 480x576 on PAL TV. So would
you advise your readers to crop their pictures to this size if they want
final output to SVCD ? This would be extremely unpractical since either they
would get a very narrow part of their images (if they crop away the sides)
or will get a lot of black borders on top and bottom (if they tried to
preserve the full width).
The way these formats (DVD and SVCD/VCD) work is that each pixel must be
stored squashed and the info for unsquashing is stored as part of the movie
so that it comes out all right on the TV when played by the DVD player.
Therefore a SVCD can still store a movie of aspect ratio of 4:3 or even
16:9, all cramped into 480x576 (ratio 5:6). When played throguh a DVD player
this would still come out to be full screen and in correct final aspect
ratio of 4:3 or 16:9 depending on the scaling info stored in the movie. if
the scaled image goes off the TV screen, the cropping would be applied
automatically by the DVD player... (However, if your DVD
player can resize the output to 1/2, you would be able to see the full
image).
The whole point here is that although the advice of scaling/cropping images
to final output size is good, it does not apply to all situations and
therefore is not universally "correct". it would be correct only if the
pixels were to be stored in the movie storage format as square pixels. The
DV-AVI output fromat of Movie Maker does not consist of square pixels. A
horizontal scale factor of 0.9375 is always applied by WMM to the input
pixels when encoding for DV-AVI format. This happens what ever input size
you use for your images....
And this information is extremely important for any reader of your webpages
to have full understanding of the issue. Particularly Movie Maker users.
Therefore in conclusion my advice for WMM users would be to resize their 4:3
input images to always a size which preserves aspect ratio. Use a size of
integral multiple of 768x576 if they want output on full screen view on TV.
Your advice to use cropped images of 720x576 is based on incorrect
assumption that WMM will not apply any horizontal scaling on the input
pixels during rendering to DV-AVI format.
Furthermore, you seem to have not even tested your advice yourself
as otherwise you would have noticed that it results in output screen of
thinner dimensions not fully covering the full width of available screen
area. The cropped input image results in cropped output image with black
borders on sides... i belive this wasnt your intention?
I don't know, you have jiggled around some numbers so as to achieve what
you seem to think is a cohesive argument. You have used Media PLayer's
incorrect output to support the argument.
Please do not base your own arguments on wrong data and untested
assumptions... do a little experiment as suggested above.
In the end I would say that I do not like to get involved in these flaming
wars but I have been annoyed by your pampous style of posts about this
issue,
bullshitting other people's advice while your own advice has flaws in it.
This sort of attitude is not appropriate for technical discussions. A little
humility
goes a long way...
Rehan
