Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (
More info?)
Doc wrote:
> When "half resolution" is picked,the AV_IO interface becomes
> narrow, and on playback on the computer, the image does the
> same whether played back within AV_IO, Windows Media Player
> or WinDVD. However, I do notice that if I playback the image
> to a TV, it looks normal.
This is quite normal. AV_IO is primarily a capture utility; it
probably does not care about aspect ratios at all. (Instead of
trying to make the image look "right" on a computer screen, it
simply displays the raw, captured pixel data, mapped 1:1 to the
screen pixels.)
As for why you get the same behavior from the Windows Media
Player or WinDVD, I can only guess, but maybe the capture
utility (or rather, the codec that you use while capturing)
does not record the meta information about the correct frame
aspect ratio into the AVI files.
You might want to try viewing them in a bit more versatile
program, such as Media Player Classic [1], and experimenting
with the different scaling options:
[1] <http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/
video_players/media_player_classic.cfm>
* * *
Anyhow, even though there was some sort of problem in getting the
standard Windows Media player to display the files correctly, you
can still use them as a source material for e.g. creating a
half-res DVD. It all really boils down to your application. What
is your source material? What is your target format? Where do you
want to use the video files?
These days, people usually want to make DVD's out of their captured
video. Is this what you are trying to do? Or is it something else?
Using half-res captures may help you in saving space if you need to
squeeze lots of material on a single DVD disc. If encoded to MPEG-2
properly, the images will stil display correctly on a tv as far as
proportions go; they are just going to have a bit more mushy look
since there is less of horizontal resolution.
Knowing what you actually intend to _do_ with the captured video
would help in making a better judgement about whether using the
halved capture resolution would be of any real use (or benefit)
to you.
--
znark