Keep original aspect ratio - need help here

[Thanh-BKK]

Hello.

I am using WinFF on Ubuntu 9.04 Hardy. WinFF version is 0.45. All necessary codecs are installed and converting from *anything* to *everything* works fine.

However now i want to convert a movie to watch it on my cell phone. The phone supports .3gp in 176x144 size.

No problem getting it there, HOWEVER the original movie is in a wide-screen format (2.11:1) and i simply can't get the converted file into that format.

Here is the command i use:

-acodec libfaac  -ac 1  -vcodec h263 -s qcif -aspect 2.11 -ar 8000 -r 15 -ab 12.2k

The part behind "-aspect" i have tried with "2.11:1", "211:100" and even "16:9" (as that would still be somewhat watchable) however the resulting .3gp file is still ALWAYS in a 4:3-like format, i.e. stretched to top and bottom. Which obviously makes people appear 12 foot tall.

Is there a way to make the actual video 176x"X" and have it add black bars to top and bottom like a software player does when i play the original on my ordinary (4:3) monitor?

Or, even better, a preset/command that simply keeps the original aspect ratio of any input file and adds those bars to comply with 176x144 in the output file? 

I would highly appreciate some help with this..... many thanks in advance.

Kind regards.....

Thanh

[BiggMatt]

remove the -s qcif

it may or may not work. the 3gp format is limited to certain sizes but i forgot exactly what they are

[Thanh-BKK]

Hello.

I have not tried that...... but i could imagine in that case the original size (and of course also the aspect ratio) would stay the same which would not only generate a ginormously huge file but also the phone would not accept it..... as this phone can only play 176x144 or smaller size (even though the screen, if switched to "fullscreen", is actually 220x176).

I found a way to get my black bars there manually, setting the video size to 176x62 and then add "-padtop 41 -padbottom 41" however that was only for this particular movie...... i would hate having to calculate and adjust that for every video that i transcode for the phone as they come in all sorts of aspect ratios.

I had previously (Windows) used a program named "Super" which always kept the aspect ratios as they were, i.e. if a movie played with black bars on a 4:3 screen it would do the same on a 176x144 display. WinFF/ffmpeg either does not have that function or i didn't find it yet (it's documentation doesn't mention it).

But WinFF is like a million percent faster than "Super"

Kind regards......

Thanh

[BiggMatt]

remove the -s qcif and then put in the size you want

[Thanh-BKK]

Hi.

If it was so easy.... i tried that and the result was exactly as if there was "qcif"..... the resulting video was 4:3.

Kind regards....

Thanh

[paul]

Hmm, not sure if what I am going to write here is 100% correct (it might also depend on your version of ffmpeg), but here we go.

As far as I understand it (which might not be enough), ffmpeg just puts the information of the original movie in the amount of pixels that you specify, AND in the mean time it sets the PAR (pixel aspect ratio). The problem for you is most likely that your phone is not clever enough to handle that. Could you try and watch the movie that you just created in several different video players and you might see what I mean. So indeed there should be a way to tell ffmpeg to just add black bars to prevent the movie from having a different aspect ratio in the amount of viewable pixels. Unfortunately for you I don't know that command.

[Thanh-BKK]

Good morning.

Yes i have tried that... i have played the resulting video file in VLC, Dragonplayer, Mplayer and Xine and in all of them it was precisely the same, i.e. stretched to fill the 4:3 aspect. The black bars simply were not there.

I then uploaded a smaller file created the same way (just a couple of minutes of the same movie) to three of my phones (Samsung L700, U800 and F309) and it was the same there, i.e. stretched to fit 4:3.

Which is how i came to the conclusion that ffmpeg respectively it's WinFF front-end simply "don't know" how to handle the black bars automatically in the way that "Super" did under Windows. Sadly i do not have any Windows machine available for testing as i succeeded pretty much to convert my entire environment including office and colleagues to Linux And "Super", while installing fine, does not run under Wine/Linux.......

For now i am fine with doing the black bars manually via the "padtop/padbottom" commands however having this done automatically would be way better as movies tend to come in all sorts of formats/aspect ratios these days......

Kind regards.....

Thanh

[paul]

Ok, then I have an other remark. It might be that the ffmpeg in Hardy is simply to old for this to function properly. I think ffmpeg should never add the black bars hard coded, it should ALWAYS be the player that does that. But now I seem to recall that maybe in Hardy's time (for me a long time ago) it was different. So maybe adding the bars is ok for now, but you might try to get hold of a newer ffmpeg for Hardy (or upgrade completely). I might experiment with this in the weekend.

[Thanh-BKK]

Hi

But i'm on Jaunty And i use the version that's in the repo.... i.e. newest available.

I also believe the black bars are added by the player however the aspect ratio is supposed to remain the same when converting which in my case is NOT the case..... 2.21:1 is in fact being converted to 4:3 which is what this entire topic is about. And if it DOES convert in such fashion it is the converter's job (ffmpeg here) to add the black bars (as one would add hard-coded subs) and preserve the aspect ratio of the actual video instead of stretching/squishing it.

"Super" on Windows does it.... why not ffmpeg..?

Kind regards......

Thanh

[BiggMatt]

why, not ask FFmpeg.org?