[MPlayer-users] Widescreen Question (To scale or not scale)

[Jorge Fábregas]

On Sunday 07 January 2007 2:08 pm, Andrew Savchenko wrote:
> Do NOT upscale unelss you want to waste bits on your hdd. Just set
> proper aspect ratio when encoding. (Note: this is metioned in the
> docs (encoding-guide) as often as possible).

I'm back at this thread as these days I was encoding from anamorphic 
widescreen (PAL) sources.  Just like mentioned here and other places, I kept 
the original frame size (4:3) when encoding and set the aspect ratio 
accordingly so that at playback time it will show in correct aspect ratio 
(16:9).   However, when I play those videos in Windows (windows media player 
& DivX player) ...these players won't detect the specified aspect 
ratio...they just won't give a damn. You need to specify manually the AR...

In mplayer my videos play fine, as it detects the AR flag.  The problem is 
that I'm encoding video for friends that use Windows (who are not that 
computer literate, and for sure won't know how to change aspect ratio..).

My point is..It's a shame these players in Windows, which are very popular in 
that platform, won't detect the specified aspect ratio. I guess I should 
write them :)

Meanwhile, I'll just scale my footage to 16:9 AR with these anamorphic 
widescreen sources wasting a couple of bits :(

Cheers!
Jorge