Aspect Ratio???

Ryujisama · Post by **Ryujisama** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 12:21 am

I recently submitted my AMV, Descent to Madness, and I must say I'm quite pleased with it. However, one member didn't think it was as peachy as I thought it was. Don't get me wrong, I take in any and all types of criticism, but then he goes on about how horrible the aspect ratio was:

Anonymous Commenter wrote:... Aside from that, this video wasn't very good. The aspect ratio was wrong. Elfen Lied is widescreen, not fullscreen. Even if you're using Windows Movie Maker, you can still take the episodes you ripped into Virtual Dub Mod and put borders on them so that WMM doesn't stretch the video incorrectly upon exporting... As it is, this is a below average video. 2/5

My concern is, does the aspect ratio really "make or break" an AMV? Help me out here, please. I need to know.

Purge · Post by **Purge** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 12:37 am

if the anime picture looks squished it can be a little displeasing - but whether it makes or breaks an amv seems a bit much - but yeah deformed looking characters is something that can easily be corrected.

sayde · Post by **sayde** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 12:49 am

this will probably get moved sooner or later, so before does, I just wanted to say that for some of the people on here, it's definately a flaw. And it's definately something people will be quick to point out. Though I find it rare when someone says it literally ruins an amv. Usually when comments are given like that, the aspect ratio must've been so far off that it was just plain annoying to watch. But not many people I've seen will judge how good or bad an amv was just on whether it was widescreen when it was supposed to be fullscreen, or vice versa.

Willen · Post by **Willen** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 5:53 am

Heck, this is like judging Olympic events. You give out some points for techincal merits. It seems you got docked a point for the aspect ratio.

I personally am a stickler about these things. But if I love the concept or the execution of a video, I can sometimes look past a wrong AR.

madbunny · Post by **madbunny** » Thu Aug 03, 2006 10:00 am

if it's cropped down, then no it's fine. If it's squished and all the characters look like the credit sequence on a kung fu movie then yes, it's an issue. Or like a stickman video.

If it's just that you didn't resize from 720x480 off the dvd, then usually that doesn't bother me.

Infinity Squared · Post by **Infinity Squared** » Thu Aug 03, 2006 10:11 am

madbunny wrote:If it's just that you didn't resize from 720x480 off the dvd, then usually that doesn't bother me.

But this bothers me sometimes actually... lucky thing that MPC can help me to get it to correct aspect ratio when needed, but though I wouldn't ultimately penalised anyone for sticking to these when it should have been in square pixels since it is being sent out for computer use, I nonetheless don't feel quite 100% about a vid.

:-:

AquaSky · Post by **AquaSky** » Thu Aug 03, 2006 10:28 am

Seeing stretched or squashed footage can definitely dampen my enthusiasm about a video, same as interlacing/subtitles/macroblocking/etc. will. Any flaw that takes the viewer out of the video by making them conscious of it will ultimately be detrimental to enjoyment. Over time, they may learn to overlook it, but it still hurts the overall video quality.

YouTube · Post by **Ileia** » Thu Aug 03, 2006 10:30 am

That's why I like VLC. I just change the aspect ratio and all is well.

Melanchthon · Post by **Melanchthon** » Thu Aug 03, 2006 12:24 pm

aielI_Ileia wrote:That's why I like VLC. I just change the aspect ratio and all is well.

Yup. Doesn't help so much if the video mixes aspect ratios by deforming some of the clips, but videos that make that mistake tend to have other flaws.

Sometimes I don't even notice if footage is still 720x480, especially if I'm unfamiliar with how the picture should look.

NeoQuixotic · Post by **NeoQuixotic** » Thu Aug 03, 2006 4:24 pm

[rant]
If you are releasing a video for the web, encode it in the correct aspect ratio! 720x480 is only used because TV pixels aren't square! Yeah so you can resize a video with VLC/MPC/many others. But if you are playing them in a playlist it is useless. I'm not going to sit there and change the ratio for every video because it would defeat the purpose of the playlist to begin with. However I rarely play AMVs in a playlist but still it is annoying.

I'm a quality freak. If technical issues aren't addressed I usually will stop watching a video. If you don't bother to properly deinterlace/resize/encode, then what should I expect from the video itself? Remember your audience people! If you really want to use 720x480 then encode to a DVD spec MPEG-2 so we can at least burn it to a DVD for playback. Also, most people are viewing AMVs on a computer and don't know how to resize during playback anyways let alone handling MPEG-2 files.

If the aspect ratio is off by any amount it bothers me a lot. So please properly resize your video! Especially if using multiple series in a video. You can't do much for playback when the ratio of one anime is correct and the other isn't. Yes and I know AMVs are a fun hobby for some, but please show some professionalism. All technical issues should be taken care of first.
[/rant]