320x240 movie doesn't show in full screen
John
interVideo DVD Copy 2 program. When I play back the AVI movie on my PPC
HP5550, it shows up as like 320x120(not sure).
I converted the AVI to WMV (320x240) using Windows Media Encoder program.
The play back still shows up as 320X120(not sure). The properties shows the
file is 320x240.
How can I make it to display at 320x240?
Thanks,
PS. If I start with a standard type DVD movie, then it would show up as
320x240.
Sven, MVP-Mobile Devices
seeing is the widescreen effect where the width is significantly wider than
the height in the original file. When you specify 320x240 it fits the wide
width into 320 and makes the height proportional to the original height. It
maintains the original aspect. Not doing so would make for tall skinny
people, or cut off the edges.
--
Sven, MS-MVP Mobile Devices
"John" <suc...@msn.com> wrote in message
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MS
takes that into account in making the final movie. For instance, if your PPC
screen is 320x240 like mine is (and I think most are), you would like a
movie to fill that screen (landscape mode, of course), as I do.
320x240 is the ratio 4:3, same as a standard TV screen. However, if the
original on the DVD is wide screen, like 16:9, the program creating the
movie file will take that aspect ratio into account, so that the movie is
not distorted, and you will end up with something like (if 16:9, there are
actually some different wide screen rations) 320x176.
If the program changed the aspect ratio, stretching the height of the film
while keeping the width the same, the picture would be all distorted,
stretched longer.
I don't like that result though (widescreen on PPC) either. On a TV or
computer screen, I don't mind the black space at top and bottom, but the PPC
screen is so small, I'd rather fill it up with the picture, full screen, no
blank space at top and bottom.
There are only two ways to deal with this. One is to crop the sides of the
movie before you encode it, (perhaps you could do that with the Intervideo
program you use, I'm not familiar with it), so that the width/height ratio
is 4:3. Crop an equal amount off each side. If the movie you start with now
has a 4:3 aspect ratio, and you set 320x240, you should actually get a video
that fills your PPC screen. That is what they do when they re-format a movie
to be full screen on a television screen. Purists hate the practice, but
it's you who are viewing it. Usually the most important action in a movie is
not on the sides, but in the center.
I have been using the program Betaplayer recently to view films on the PPC,
and have found another solution with that. (It won't play WMV files though.
I don't recall if WMP will do the following also, I don't recall.) It's
basically doing the same as in the preceding paragraph, but on the playback
side. Under "Zoom" in options, the default is "Fit to screen". That fits a
320x176 video to the width, with the empty black space above and below.
There are also options "fit width" (which would give the same result as "fit
screen" in this case) and "fit height". If you choose the latter, "fit
height", the video is stretched in size so that the height of the screen is
filled, no black space on top and bottom. The aspect ratio of the movie is
not changed, the movie just increases in size in all directions, so that the
width ends up being larger than 320, so you cannot see what is on the sides,
the same as if you had cropped it off, and the width fits the whole 240.
Disadvantage of doing this, increasing the size of a video larger than its
resolution is not considered a good idea, as it involves interpolation to
increase the size. However, when I tried it with a 320x176 video, it looked
quite acceptable. Another way to do this would be to encode the video larger
so that the height would be 240 even with the wider aspect ratio (I think
432x240 for a 16:9 film). Then when you choose the "fit height" option in
playback, just as above, the 240 height would be filled, and the sides of
the video would not show on the screen. The advantage of the larger size
video would be that no stretching would be required to fit that size.
Disadvantage--of course, larger video =larger file size for the same
compression quality.
When I mentioned this possibility in another thread (perhaps a different
forum), some people replied that it's not a good idea, better to crop the
video in advance. However, I see some definite advantages to this method,
doing the "cropping" in the playback end (giving the same result as if I had
cropped the video before encoding) rather than on the encoding end. For one
thing, it makes the encoding job easier, not having to deal with cropping.
Then, while playing back, although you might mostly be watching it with this
"fit height" option, which gives the same effect as if you had cropped the
sides, if you ever think there might be important things going on on the
sides, you can easily switch the zoom to "fit screen" or "fit width", and
see the full wide-screen video. Not having cropped the video, you can still
see the full picture if desired. (Again though, I don't recall if WMP has
these same zoom options.)
A different problem occurs when a movie is really wide screen, not cropped
and re-formatted but it is still listed as 4:3, just with black bars on top
and bottom. Then even if you crop the sides, even if you choose "fit height"
on playback, those black bars will be there, as the movie thinks that is
part of the movie. You are wasting file space too, in encoding the empty
black space. Then it is important to crop off those black bars on top and
bottom, before either cropping the sides, or encoding as is wide screen,
perhaps to watch full screen with the zoom function. Some programs will
sense such black bars in the movie, and automatically crop them off. I don't
recall whether WME will do that.
"Sven, MVP-Mobile Devices" <sejoh...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
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John
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