[MPlayer-users] mpeg2 resolution

[Bret Hughes]

On Mon, 2004-05-10 at 14:24, Matthew W. Miller wrote:
> On Mon, May 10, 2004 at 01:19:15AM -0500, Bret Hughes wrote:
> >why 720X 480?  this aspect ratio is 1.5 or 6 X 4 I thought tvs were 4x3
> >and movies were 16 x 9
> 
> You seem to be under the impression that pixels are generally square in
> DVD video.  They aren't.  This was gone over on-list a while back;
> here's one pretty good reference:
> http://www.uwasa.fi/~f76998/video/conversion/ (or
> http://www.iki.fi/znark/video/conversion/ )
> 


Thanks I'll take a look.  I have read more stuff bout pixels and
colorspaces and hardware decoding and bitstreams and who knows what
else, but you are right I always assumed that a pixels was square, or at
least now that I think about it square enough not to make too much
difference.

> NTSC DVD video is 720x480 pixels (and PAL DVD is 720x576), no matter
> what the picture's aspect ratio is.  If it's 4x3, the pixels will be
> slightly squashed.  If it's 16x9, they'll be *really* squashed.
> 

Of course since I am playig htis back on both dvi and vga monitors
connected to a graphics card on the computer I forget that alot of this
stuff has its roots in trying to get digital images to a tv.

> As for the actual aspect ratio of the artists' 1280x768 picture, who the
> hell knows.  The only way to figure it out for sure is to get out a 
> measuring stick and find out yourself. :)
> -- 

I probably will have to beofre it is all over.

>       MPlayer does not suck.

No it sure does not.  what a great piece of software.  I am appreciative
of all the work that has gone into it to make it so flexible and
powerful.

I on;y hope that the developers knew more aboput it thatn I do now when
they started or I woul sugesst that all of them are bald by now.

Bret