[FFmpeg-cvslog] doc/faq: explain DAR/SAR preserving.

[Nicolas George]

ffmpeg | branch: master | Nicolas George <george at nsup.org> | Mon Feb  9 16:17:22 2015 +0100| [c49c42a4a3a99c63a1e6fd4fc568b71b49b6e6a1] | committer: Nicolas George

doc/faq: explain DAR/SAR preserving.

> http://git.videolan.org/gitweb.cgi/ffmpeg.git/?a=commit;h=c49c42a4a3a99c63a1e6fd4fc568b71b49b6e6a1
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 doc/faq.texi |   34 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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diff --git a/doc/faq.texi b/doc/faq.texi
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@@ -467,6 +467,40 @@ point acceptable for your tastes. The most common options to do that are
 @option{-qscale} and @option{-qmax}, but you should peruse the documentation
 of the encoder you chose.
 
+ at section I have a stretched video, why does scaling does not fix it?
+
+A lot of video codecs and formats can store the @emph{aspect ratio} of the
+video: this is the ratio between the width and the height of either the full
+image (DAR, display aspect ratio) or individual pixels (SAR, sample aspect
+ratio). For example, EGA screens at resolution 640×350 had 4:3 DAR and 35:48
+SAR.
+
+Most still image processing work with square pixels, i.e. 1:1 SAR, but a lot
+of video standards, especially from the analogic-numeric transition era, use
+non-square pixels.
+
+Most processing filters in FFmpeg handle the aspect ratio to avoid
+stretching the image: cropping adjusts the DAR to keep the SAR constant,
+scaling adjusts the SAR to keep the DAR constant.
+
+If you want to stretch, or “unstretch”, the image, you need to override the
+information with the
+ at url{http://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-filters.html#setdar_002c-setsar, @code{setdar or setsar filters}}.
+
+Do not forget to examine carefully the original video to check whether the
+stretching comes from the image or from the aspect ratio information.
+
+For example, to fix a badly encoded EGA capture, use the following commands,
+either the first one to upscale to square pixels or the second one to set
+the correct aspect ratio or the third one to avoid transcoding (may not work
+depending on the format / codec / player / phase of the moon):
+
+ at example
+ffmpeg -i ega_screen.nut -vf scale=640:480,setsar=1 ega_screen_scaled.nut
+ffmpeg -i ega_screen.nut -vf setdar=4/3 ega_screen_anamorphic.nut
+ffmpeg -i ega_screen.nut -aspect 4/3 -c copy ega_screen_overridden.nut
+ at end example
+
 @chapter Development
 
 @section Are there examples illustrating how to use the FFmpeg libraries, particularly libavcodec and libavformat?